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AS A 16-YEAR-OLD walking through Dublin’s inner city in the autumn of 1982, German exchange student David Jazay fell in love.
Not with a Dublin cailín, but with the city itself. Specifically, with the Liffey quays.
He had also recently discovered photography and was struck with an idea that would meld the two. Unbeknownst to him, he would continue to work on that project for decades.
With incredible foresight for a teenager, Jazay knew that the city’s heart would be unrecognisable in a few years.
“It was such a unique era in time,” he told TheJournal.ie from his Berlin home. “Just before the buildings were torn down or completely made over. It was obvious it was going to change soon.”
As he strolled along the quays on a Sunday morning in October, Jazay said he realised “all these marks or undeveloped or derelict places” would not feature in an inner city in Germany.
To him though, it wasn’t bleak. It was beautiful.
“It was like a big adventure playground,” he recalls. “It was exciting. It gave me a sense of white space and colour schemes that were visually very stunning…especially for a continental European.”
More than 30 years later, Jazay is ready to exhibit some of the work that he produced as a result of those teenage musings.
“I became attached to the area and after I studied film in Munich, I returned each year [for a decade] to continue the project. With each visit, the photos got better and better.”
It was only this year that the computer technology caught up with his obsession of photographing every single detail of a particular structure. As a result of improvements in computer image processing technology, he was able to turn his fine-grained medium format negatives into high-resolution panoramas with huge levels of detail.
The result – large, composite images – allow the the view to experience the city, exactly how it was in the 1980s and early 1990s.
His panoramas capture the entire Liffey quays before redevelopment to ensure “new generations experience the Dublin of that pivotal era, now largely lost to visual memory”.
A statement on his website is appropriate to quote on this Bloomsday weekend.
Much like in that famous quote attributed to Joyce “… if the city one day suddenly disappeared from the earth it could be reconstructed …(from his Ulysses)”, I too had the madness and the ambition to photograph every building under threat of demolition, document what I could of the last cornershops, antique furniture businesses and auction houses along the Liffey.
I concentrated on Georgian architectural ensembles (still posessing grandeur in dilapidation) and the poor but lively Inner City neighbourhoods: shopkeepers, marketers, children playing in the streets, local characters.
This whole microcosm would irrevocably change a few years later, in the boom years of the Celtic Tiger.
Now, after 30 years, I am able to realise my vision (unattainable with solely chemical photographic technique), of re-constructing a memory of Dublin’s Inner City in the pre-boom years – and to bring back this vision to the place that inspired it.
At the end of the 1980s, Jazay made a film about the area and became involved in discussions about what should become of the quays.
He says he wanted to portray the inner city as “alive” and not a derelict space.
“I had this vision of beauty, grand architectural heritage and a face of the city that was only appreciated by very few people.”
He explains that caring about the architectural heritage at that stage in the ’80s was an “exotic concern” given the grave economic problems.
That vision he had as a 16-year-old has now come to life. He says the little sketches he made back in 1982 are “pretty close” to what his full Dublin Before The Tiger exhibition will be.
Through his images, he wants to show the way of life that is now gone, recreating time and space in a myriad of ways. He focuses on the corner shops that are no longer trading, the family businesses that were cherished and the auction houses that were numerous in the area.
“At that time in history, the buildings were very rich in layers. You could see the origin in the Georgian buildings, and then the additions and the repairs. The signs of people living there for centuries.
“They are a rich, layer-cake of history.”
He says he has shown the images to people who never saw Dublin during this period and they could not name the city.
They thought the images were “very exotic”, he added.
While the images you see here are scaled down, Jazay imagines them being shown as large, immersive prints at an exhibition.
He wants them to be printed in large sizes – at least 2×6 metres.
“What you can’t see in the web images, is the amazing level of detail,” he explains.
The artist wants people to be able to stand in front of the images and “take in the architectural detail, see where each shop and sign was, discover the very fabric and the marks left on the buildings”.
He will be in return to Dublin in July for the PhotoIreland Festival, hoping to drum up interest in exhibiting the work.
His ideal location for the event would be a non gallery space, such as a disused building.
“The response so far has been really good,” he says. “Maybe it’s the right time – after the boom, after the crash. There is an awareness of what has happened.”
The presence of traditional techniques and businesses has also struck a chord, given the resurgence in small enterprises recently.
And, does he still love Dublin?
Yes. He never came back during the so-called Celtic Tiger but he had “heard stories”.
“So when I came back after a 20-year hiatus, I wasn’t shocked or surprised. But, compared to what it could have been, I still liked the quays and the new boardwalks. It’s nice to have less traffic and more people.
“Of course, it would have been good to see more of the buildings kept but it is still immensely lively and the basic heights of the buildings have remained.
“I also like the modern aspects of Dublin – the open society, the multiculturalism. I still love the city and look forward to coming back.”
To see more, check out David Jazay’s website.
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Great news for rural Ireland in particular.
@Shane Dunne: great. €1 per stamp now…crazy price.
The local post office is a staple of many a village in Ireland. Next to the pub and the gaa pitch. Iconic, even.
Good – but they be forced to clean up a bit?
Most of them are an utter shambles – old posters everywhere, bits of tat on the walls. If they had competitors, you’d go elsewhere.
Yes, some are tidy but in general they’re a mess.
@Shane Diffily: I don’t know where these post offices are located that you frequent but I can honestly say that the post offices I’ve been in the last few months are immaculate! I’ll name a few….Ballymote, gurteen, frenchpark, ballaghaderreen, Castlerea, castlebar, all of which also have lovely staff.
@selfsustainable: Well said and I can add a few more to that list – Millstreet, Kanturk, Banteer, Newmarket, Boherbue & I’m sure there are plenty more in towns & villages that are a credit to those running them. Still this is the journal after all so whinging & rudeness as well as loads of begrudgery seem to be the norm.
@Mary Cullinane: So someone’s opinion of messy post offices from his experience is rudeness and begrudgery now? Is it so hard to believe that outside your reality that everything isn’t as rosy as you’d like to believe?
Nice to hear some are well kept. Not common in my experience.
@Mary Cullinane: why is @Shane Diffily’s offensive to you? There was no whinging, rudeness, or begrudgery anywhere in his comment. It seems to be a common problem on the journal comments section that if someone talks about their experience that is less than favourable, or is critical of something….people like yourself will come back with insults like whinging, begrudgery, rudeness, etc. Which is actually exactly what your comment is. You did the very thing that you accused @Shane Diffily of. If his experience with An Post offices being clean is less than favourable…that is his experience. Who are you to say it isn’t? Quite frankly. ..I have had both experiences. Some are run beautifully , and are spotless. Others….just the opposite. Some so badly run and filthy that I don’t know why they are tolerated, or how they are allowed to operate.
Finally….some good news!
@Patty Cullinane: There’s plenty of good news out there ,it’s a beautiful warm sunny day,there is full employment,people are flying off in their thousands for holidays Ireland won the Slam,even fewer rough sleepers on the streets , cheer up ,happy days
Beware – Post Office Announcement – STATUS RED WARNING:-
I’m hugely concerned about this development. Whilst I cannot be sure at this point, it is believed that Bank of Ireland will enter into a contract with the Post Offices to provide “Community” Banking throughout the country. The Pillar banks win and citizens and the indigenous economy loose. Government wins because it pulls a three card trick, i.e. saves the Post Offices and introduces “Community” Banking in the one stroke.
However, the market dominance of the pillar banks will be further enhanced and a potential competitor, i.e. Post Bank, will be removed from the equation.
If this plan is actually announced, then government is once again failing to deliver under Article 45 [2] (iv) (Directive Principle) of the Constitution, which states;
“that in what pertains to the control of credit the constant and predominant aim shall be the welfare of the people as a whole.”
Interest rates will remain exorbitantly high (as criminally fixed by the pillar banks in conjunction with and protected by government / regulators). Remember that German Public Banks currently offer 30 year mortgages, fixed for ten years at 1.1% and business loans as low as 1% and not exceeding 3%.
Credit Unions will come under even more pressure as people will be encouraged to save with their “community” bank which will be in a position to offer higher rates than Credit Unions (being as BoI can “create” credit unlike the Credit Unions).
Bank of Ireland will reduce its cost base and have its work done for a pittance by Post Offices; BoI shareholders win, society loses – again.
Aesthetically, this looks like a great move and will bring huge praise and fanfare to Leo Varadkar and Fine Gael but the reality is that Ireland needs real Public / Community banking to compete with the risk taking privately owned pillar banks. In fact, introducing competition to the banking sector was a prerequisite to the EU / ECB bail out of our the pillar banks.
The way forward for the Post Office Network is to replicate what the New Zealand government did in 2002; to set up Ireland’s version of the Kiwi Bank. Kiwi Bank now has 20% of the New Zealand market and growing – now that would be a problem for Ireland’s pillar banks, wouldn’t it. And this is the crunch, corpocracy wins again.
Please message me on Facebook with e-mail address for a copy of our (PBFI – Public Banking Forum of Ireland) preliminary proposal document – “Creating Ireland’s Alternative Banking Force”.
@Seamus Maye: I think one of the reasons interest rates are higher here is we have no repossessions ,so why would Germans or anyone offer loans on property here, when they can’t get it back,when the borrower refuses to pay back ,and stays in the house protected by the politicians and the courts,so interest rates are high,is that true ?
@Robert Harris: not really. Banks here gave out a lot of tracker mortgages which are now unprofitable as they are tied to the historically low ECB interest rate.
In many cases, they didn’t hold enough deposit monies either, relying on wholesale overnight money market lending to satisfy the capital reserve requirements.
When the collapse came, as they weren’t sufficiently capitalized to cover loan impairments, they needed huge bailouts. No-one wanted to loan them money without premium rates and they only way they could attract funds (apart from the bailout money) was to offer higher deposit rates.
All these costs were passed onto the variable rate mortgage holders as the trackers can’t be touched.
Rates have come down relatively well over the past 3-4 years and whilst they’re still higher than our European counterparts, so are our deposit rates.
ECB rates are likely to begin increasing from 2019 onwards and there’s no telling how much they’ll go up – might be an idea for those on decent variable rates to consider fixing for a 5 year plus term if they can secure a competitive rate.
Trackers will come up regardless and may well end up carrying the slack for the variables to equalize the rates overall.
Every Post Office should
– have an ATM ( hardly any one does)
- sell county & town specific stamps ( aimed at tourists and collectors)
- open late one night a week
- have a desk for the local credit union in each branch
- be agents for concert tickets sales etc ( as their market is older )
- have parcel collect services
- facilitate ebay and amazon sellers
- be a drop off point for all deliveries – like Parcel Motel units ( i know they do a similar service but you have to go to the depot)
Think like a business….
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Shame really, AnPost run an absolutely woeful service and the market should be opened up to allow real competition.
They can’t make deliveries and refuse to engage with people who have complaints.
A package of mine went missing for nearly a month, no help from their incredibly rude staff. Only when I reported them to ComReg and forwarded the emails I had received calling me a liar and blaming me did my package magically turn up and get delivered.
Take a look at their twitter timeline for a quick glance at how they treat the public who rely on their service.
@Mack: “I had one bad experience e with this company that, therefore they are irredeemable”
@Neal Ireland Hello.:
I wish it was only one experience.
They “misplaced” contracts that were sent by registered post in January that cost my company a tender worth 6 figures. Boss is currently pursuing legal action over it. Contracts still haven’t been found.
My 5 year old nephews birthday cards arrived ripped open last November. Thankfully no one was silly enough to trust them with money, but it’s obviously what they were looking for.
I could mention the data protection breach that a current staff member is about to blow the whistle on but I’ll wait until it hits the media so as not to spoil the surprise for everyone.
Will they open for lunch now?
Probably not.
Nice one unions.
@Dara O’Brien: Making the same money as a check out operator in Tesco, I’m sure being able to actually eat a lunch in the day is a boon.
@Jennifer Allen: yes, eating lunch is nice. Many small retail staff do it – they tAke it turns so they can stay open. I know it’s a complicated suggestion but if you think about it hard enough it’ll come.
@Dara O’Brien: How do you propose that a one person Post Office “take turns”?
have your say