Sir, – There are reports that Dublin City Council is to permit the city’s buskers the use of amplification on Grafton Street for an annual fee of €60 (“Barred Temple Bar buskers to get Grafton Street reprieve”, October 28th). As the owner of a small building conservation practice located on the middle of Grafton Street, I am very concerned at this development. By way of comparison, a small office like ours located at third-floor level pays the council in excess of €1,500 annually in rates.
Grafton Street has suffered badly during the last 10 years, as is evident in the quality of the retail units on the street. Our offices are located in an elegant three-storey, over-ground floor retail unit dating from 1870. We can see down Johnson’s Court and towards the steeple of Christchurch Cathedral in Mediaeval Dublin. Sadly, our windows also afford a view of the dilapidated and empty upper floor offices of the buildings opposite. Outside of Bewley’s, Marks & Spencers, Brown Thomas and the larger department stores on the street, these units are typical of Grafton Street.
We see no advantage in turning our historic street into a 18th-century museum. As building conservation practitioners, we work to facilitate the sensitive repair of buildings and to adapt them to new and often creative new uses. At a stroke, loud amplified and uncontrolled street music removes the possibility of developing residential accommodation on or near Grafton Street and renders small office occupancy like ours impractical.
The current proposals will see Grafton Street become a karaoke ghetto and dampen hopes for its rejuvenation.
To the buskers on Grafton Street we say, “We love music but if you are good enough you are loud enough”. – Yours, etc,
DAVID MAHER,
Dublin 2.