HA-LE-LOO-IA

So, what is this interesting looking building?

I first spotted it in 2008 in the public car park beside Killiney railway station.

So what, I hear you wondering.

Well, it had these unusual plaques on the wall.

I inquired then of the Council about them. They are by the artist Imogen Stuart and are highly appropriate in the proximity of a sixth century monastic settlement, Cill Iníon Léinín, from which Killiney gets it name.

And yes. This is a public toilet and the signs have a nun for the ladies, a monk in a wheelchair for the disabled, and a standing monk for the gents.

I hear you wonder: just how enlightened can a Council get?

My answer is very, and I wrote to them and told them so in 2008.

But hold on a minute. What is the score today?

The gents is closed.

The disabled is closed.

But the ladies is open.

Now you can look on this a number of ways.

Perhaps the Council forgot the meaning of the signs and wondered why they needed three separate toilets when space was at a premium. So they put two of them to other uses and closed them to the public.

Or, they made a conscious decision to have a unisex toilet and that was the ladies one.

So, perhaps a further phase of enlightenment has dawned?

Next time I'm out there I must check if the ladies has also been modified to suit the diabled and while I'm there I might even check out the length of the queue.

Maybe by then they'll have have shifted the plaques and have Imogen do a few more to welcome all shades of gender and none.

Visit 2008

Visit 2011