Before: Montague Street, Dublin 2

After: Montague Street today

Ultan Mashup writes:

Montague Street (Dublin 2) is not paradise. But there was no need to close the Post Office for locals and put up a bakery for the usual suspects in the locale. I thought PornDog (now closed) – also on same street – took the biscuit.

When are we going to have a debate about hipster and millennials’ gentrification in our cities?

Anyone?

 

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74 thoughts on “Progress

    1. Anomanomanom

      Have you been to dublin 8 lately. It’s slowly dying a death, its becoming to gentrified, the old shops that made it what is was going one by one.

      1. Barry the Hatchet

        This is such utter and complete rubbish I don’t even know where to begin. Dublin 8 is vibrant and delightful.

        1. Betty

          It is being gentrified, I’ve lived in the area for ten years and have been watching it happen. Give it a few years and all its quirky little spots will be gone. Pushed out by soaring rents, hotels, student accommodation, offices and breweries.

          1. Tabloid Rag

            nonsense

            it’s one of the most vibrant areas in Dublin

            move out to Foxrock or Cabinteely

          2. Barry the Hatchet

            I live there too. It is an area which has been undergoing change for some time. Elderly residents are dying and their houses are being sold. Younger people with children, young professionals and students are moving in. These people spend their money in local shops, which is good. They also bring with them the demand for different services. So the area gets new restaurants, new shops, new pubs. Some older places close because the demand for them is not what it was. None of this is, in my view, destroying the character of the area.

            Places change. Not all change is bad.

  1. theflorist

    I know that street went down hill when the local farrier closed to be replaced by a mechanics.

  2. Owen

    Lets not let any area improve, or develop local employment, or evolve. We should force things to stay the same.

    We should prevent all changes in the urban environmental that will benefit the local community and ensure the current demographic be kept. We should also demand the failing An Post be kept open everywhere nationwide, without any attempts to change with its community, and then when we the tax payer has to bail it out of mammoth debt, we should blame the crooks in the government.

    1. Co C.

      And the cheek of millennials wanting to live in a place and then to replace services with other services for which there is a higher demand.
      My generation is right, the others are wrong.

      1. Custo

        Donuts & hot dogs & burgers in faux hipster style.

        Dublin literally has no identity of its own.

  3. Rob_G

    Post Office was closing down regardless, it’s not as if the bakery did a hostile takeover.

    Does everyone not enjoy bread(?)

    Where are you from, Ultan?

    1. Sheila

      This ^^^

      It was a shame to see this PO close as it was my go to PO at lunchtime.

      You should be grateful it’s not another donut shop :)

      1. imhere

        I’m more curious about what Sheila does in her lunchtime. Surely eating a ciabatta in a run down post office is the most hipster thing ever.

        1. Sheila

          Bad the PO closed, but there’s one on Earlsfort Terrace, so I’m not affected too adversely.
          Tongue in cheek with the donut shop comment :)

          1. thecitizenatbarneys

            Bad news, I believe the one on Earlsfort Terrace still closes for lunch….

          2. Andyourpointiswhatexactly?

            I don’t think it does. I think it’s the one on Merrion Row that closes at lunchtime.

      1. Rob_G

        ♪ ♪ “He’s got a daytime job [in an upmarket bakery], he’s doing alriiight” ♪ ♪

  4. Fitzitagain

    The bakery hardly closed the post office, that was a commercial decision by An Post. The “usual suspects” in the area support a lot of local businesses and jobs so your sneering seems a little misplaced.

      1. Kolmo

        Donut act surprised when the regretably declining post office is scone..long scone at this stage..
        Roll on success, swiss roll of success, avocado drop in one day and sample my fixie of cake

  5. On The Buses

    I doubt the Post Office was closed specifically for it to become a bakery. Would you have preferred another Paddy Power? Or another Pub?

    When you are railing against the wave of local bakeries, you really are barking up the wrong tree.

  6. PaddyM

    It doesn’t seem to have been a commercial decision by An Post:

    Montague Street post office: Dublin residents denied social welfare payments over surprise closure

    The landlord seems to have taken the opportunity presented by the switch in agents to look for a better offer.

    Interestingly, this ad dates from mid-March (before the retirement of the previous postmistress):

    https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:ZZkA4ikQCIkJ:https://www.myhome.ie/commercial/brochure/2-montague-street-dublin-2-dublin/3925989

    Old dears collecting their pensions are a much less attractive demographic than Broadsheet readers in search of some NOMNOMNOM in Hipster Central.

    1. Andyourpointiswhatexactly?

      Gwan outta dah, wha’? Snot his fault.
      Though fault implies I think the name is manky. Which is rude.

  7. Vote Rep #1

    If it was D7 or D8, you could have a point but its a street in between Harcourt St and Camden St for gods sake. If you have issue with the post office closing, take it up with an post. If you have issue with a new business going into an empty shop, you’re weird.

  8. Talismania!

    Let’s have that debate. I would not be described as a hipster or a millenial. But I’m for a bit of gentrification.

    Gentrification used to be called Urban Renewal and cities were desperate for it, because they were generally overcrowded without needed or wanted services.

    Now that we suddenly are seeing the free market provide things people want, there are those who decry the changes. “Bring back the old days!”, they say.

    The needle will swing the other way again. There will be a downturn, hopefully not as bad as 2008. Some Donut shops and bakeries will go out of business. Strong businesses will survive. Enterprising shops will open in these spaces. The government probably will not re-open post offices, which are going the way of the telephone box. (put another way, I Skyped my cousin yesterday to tell her a birthday card was in the mail).

    The world will change further. People will continue to want nice things. Shops will open to provide them. Grumpy conservatives will grumble and complain another debate is needed.

    1. Talismania!

      Tyndall Architecture’s new entrance is really looking well. Damn you, Hipsters!

    2. Sheik Yahbouti

      You skyped your Cousin?? Well isn’t that just fabulous? I mean, how modern can we get? Just think, you might have posted your card in time to be received on the relevant day! I know, sheer fantasy.

      1. Andyourpointiswhatexactly?

        Sand in the aul vadge, Sheik? You’ve been irrationally irked by that section of the post.
        Though, to be fair, I work myself up to high doh over nothing too, so I’m no-one to talk.
        As you were.

    3. pedeyw

      The old complaint about every city is that its not the same as it used to be, which is true because cities change and grow all the time.
      Also no one thinks they’re a hipster but some of you definitely are, compared to others. Because hipster is a nonsense term.

  9. De Kloot

    What a millennial hipster concept – fresh pastries, bread and cakes all baked an sold under the one roof…. This, when everyone know all baked goods should be mass produced in a big factory in an industrial estate in Kildare or somewhere.

    Oh, and Ultan, you don’t seem to mind Cake Cafe a little down the road… Were you customer 201 on Monday an miss out of your free coffee and muffin or something?

    https://www.broadsheet.ie/2017/03/03/giving-up-marriage-for-lent/

    (Oh, and wait till you get s load of the new Steakhouse a couple of Dublin GAA players are opening up beside Flannery’s)

      1. Brother Barnabas

        Brogans are investors (not owners) in Featherblade on Dawson Street so maybe again?

  10. Murtles

    I’m am neither a hipster nor a millennial but I would prefer to buy a nice chocolate éclair rather than a TV Licence.

  11. Sheik Yahbouti

    What can I say to you? If I agree with you, I’m a sad, farty old coffin dodger. If I disagree with you I have to endure being lumped in with this new swathe of outwardly smart , but intrinsically brainless, generation. Wot a dilemma!!

  12. bored with morons

    I blame Bob Dylan

    I lived with them on Montague Street
    In a basement down the stairs
    There was music in the cafes at night
    And revolution in the air

    1. Bertie Blenkinsop

      “And when finally the bottom fell out
      I became withdrawn”

      We’ve all been there in fairness…..

  13. gepo the great

    gentrification doesn’t happen in ireland. if anyone wants to refute that I’ll explain why. also, it’s not hipsters doing this, is business people, the ant-hipsters. theyre just tryna cash in on a buzz.

    1. Kolmo

      BBC 4 did a study on the Hipster – they are mostly business people, involved in making money/ a living mostly, some with a touch of self-delusion about making the world a better place through quirky named ‘beer’, 1990’s skiing jacket outlets or infantile cereal cafés – others were just in it for the cash..

  14. George

    Glad to see that post-office gone. It was useless; the staff were miserable and it closed for lunch – the one time I’d need to use it as I work in the area. I’m sure the “locals” can collect their unemployment benefits from one of the surrounding post offices (Rathmines, Portobello, GPO etc).

  15. curmudgeon

    Ah here lads if all the post offices go Parcel Motel will get the state contract to give out the dole and OAPension. Can you imagine the queue at your local petrol station…

  16. Kdoc1

    It’s happening everywhere. The techies have destroyed the character of San Francisco. They have priced the locals out of the rental and ownership housing markets. The soul is going out of the place with the techies doing their early morning work-outs in local gyms and then being bussed down the 101 to Silicone Valley.

  17. Gay Tea Shop

    Millennials are the same sect partners of gentrification. Fupp ’em.

    If this bakery had the word “Porn” in its name, like PornDog that closed further up the same street, Una Mullally and the rest of the Irish Times identification politics crew would be all over it. But ordinary Dubliners and Liberties natives aren’t Irish Times readers so let them move out to Tallaght. Facts my behind.

  18. NB

    All local post offices in Dublin close for lunch. This might have something to do with them having to close for good due to lack of Biznazz.

    1. Kenny U-Vox Plank

      Could they not sell baked goods on the side with the childer’s allowances and dog licences?

  19. Niamh

    Alright alright, ironic/artisan bakery schtick is not True Dublin enough, or whatever, blah blah, but there is a point I must make loud and clear, and ask that you, my peers, pay attention: this is NOT millennials.

    Millennials are broke, indebted, and over-educated victims of circumstance, both terrified of never being employed, and obliged to live in decrepit, over-packed houses in order to remain within walking distance of work options. Because they can’t f*cking drive.

    The generation opening bakeries and making The Happy Pear a thing are GENERATION X, or at least those who survived the cocaine blizzard of the early noughties long enough to produce Sucra and Fiachra and need somewhere hip to take the souped-up bugaboo of a Sunday morning.

    So leave my poor, hungry, worthlessly qualified generation alone, ‘k? Anyway the oul lads and oul ones of Rare Ould Dublin are the ones sitting on ex-council house goldmines, charging millenials five hundred quid a pop for a box room. They’re doing ok.

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