If ever you go ...

"Shaming the Custom House" Liberty Hall
Click on any image for a larger version

I have taken my title from a verse of Paddy Kavanagh's

If ever you go to Dublin town
In a hundred years or so
Inquire for me in Baggot Street 

And what I was like to know.

That was the title for last year's "One City, One Book" and John Dorman has taken some of the poems in the book and sketched the locations described in them.

His exhibition is currently in Raheny library till the end of the month (April). It is well worth a visit. The sketches incorporate buildings and maps of their environment, a sense of object and of place.

The one above is quite obviously Liberty Hall and the accompanying poem by Austin Clarke (below) only goes a small bit of the way to expressing how I feel about this monument to 1960s' hubris and pretentiousness. Anyway, give it a read yourself and see.

Poem written during the construction of Liberty Hall

Part of the exhibition in Raheny library

You can see more of Dorman's sketches on his website, both in this series and albums covering a wider range of subjects.

My own comment on Liberty Hall is fully captured in this visual (not in the exhibition !).