What could have been…
Kenure in all her glory taken in 1960 showing one if the gardners at work and the other in 2021. Imagine what an asset this could have been for the village, Fingal and Irish tourism pic.twitter.com/nkULfTUm4G— Kenure House & Park (@KenureP) October 4, 2021
Kenure House, Rush, county Dublin
Built in 1827.
Demolished by Dublin City Council for ‘safety reasons’ in in 1978, leaving only the portico behind.
Kenure House and Park (Facebook)
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It’s difficult to feel any warmth towards the big houses and what they represented. Better to have it as a ruin. Poetic too.
That’s daft. By that argument should be let every building built before 1921 go to ruin? We can preserve our built heritage and acknowledge history without glorifying it.
We can preserve, but not them all, and Kenure House was of no major architectural significance. It’s not Emo or Carton. The tax payer shouldn’t be expected to pick up the tab for keeping second-rate gentry buildings standing so that certain people can indulge in their silly revisionist Downton fantasies.
Dublin City Council (that bastion of progressive thinking) let Kenure house go to ruin over 10 years through neglect before knocking it. Only local protests stopped the portico being knocked as well, which would have left no trace of a significant historical feature in Rush. These things add real value to an area and your trite “revisionist Downton” attitude is the reason so much is lost to us already.
plus a massive chunk of Georgian Dublin
What has been lost? A second-rate gentry house in Rush? A house that has little to no architectural merit? If you want to pick up the tab for keeping every Georgian or Victorian carbuncle standing, then be my guest. But if you want the taxpayer to pay for the maintenance of your Irish R.M. wet-dreams, then you’d better realize that that’s not going to happen.
So they built Ballymun.
Do you really think Bodger that had that gentry house not been demolished it would’ve been used for social housing? That’s a conspiracy theory too far (even for you).
The new Ireland had no answer to the beauty of Georgian architecture, which apparently oppressed them, so they chose brutalism. With a little imagination those big houses could have been saved.
With a little imagination people could appreciate brutalism.
+1 Sara btw.
Some of our Georgian architecture is beautiful, but most of it isn’t (look at the houses on Merrion Square, they’re not exactly gorgeous; Wittgenstein said they were defensive and depressing, he had a point). Harcourt St. too, dull houses, jerrybuilt at the time, and only standing now because of steel framing). The problem with a lot of the commentary on this is that certain people think that if something is Georgian or Victorian it is by default gorgeous. That’s not so. The irony is that the Robert O’Byrnes, Patrick Comerfords and Bodgers of this world who argue that every house should be preserved would not have been allowed through the front door of any mansion had they lived back then. Plus, who picks up the tab? Just to reline Kenure House roof with lead, you’re talking several millions. Reslating, add another million. How many gentry houses do we have? Who’s going to pay for that? The taxpayer? It would make the Mica bill seem like loose change.
Lovely house. Just walked down Harcourt Street yesterday and thought how beautiful it is. Something about that Georgian brick as opposed to modern concrete, the simple elegance of the buildings. Merrion Square is also very special (apart from the unfortunate pyramid opposite Leinster House). There’s a peace to those buildings which we can all aspire to. It’s true that not everyone in the past had the luxury of living there in comfort, but that doesn’t mean we should pull them down but instead aspire to have that comfort and beauty available to all.
Fair enough Donal, but no one’s talking of pulling down Harcourt St. or Merrion Square. But should the taxpayer have to pay for every crumbling-down gentry house? When Kenure was passed on to the State the previous owner had left it riddled with dry rot and rising damp. It would’ve cost several millions to stabilise. And for what? To preserve a house that’s second-rate at best?
I can appreciate Sara’s comments and approach to this, but something still feels wrong when you see a house like this destroyed or left to rot.
In a very naïve and simplistic way i have always wondered could houses and properties like this be bought by a collective of like minded people with the aim of living in it and maintaining it. it probably wouldn’t work without grants or subsidies and the group of people would probably fallout like in a commune but its nice to imagine places being saved.