We Don't Know Ourselves: A Personal History of Modern Ireland

by Fintan O'Toole

As the property editor of the Irish Times, Orna Mulcahy, noted of one of the iconic (doubly iconic in being, in the end, unbuilt) developments of the boom years, Sean Dunne’s would-be ‘new Knightsbridge’ in the swanky Dublin district of Ballsbridge: ‘I dug out the architects’ drawings from the bottom of a heap under my desk and yes, there it was: sunshine, flooding the imagined plazas and courtyards and bouncing off the glass of towering apartment blocks. Pert-breasted women strolling around in T-shirts and sunglasses.’ Even the underground shopping mall was filled with palms, orchids and cacti. The sense of direction was madly askew. As Mulcahy noted, ‘On the property developer’s compass, you see, there is no north… the vast majority of balconies built during the boom faced south – even the many that actually looked due north and enjoyed direct sunlight about once a year.’9