Liberty Hall: Building a perfect postmodern beast in 1960s Dublin
Michael O’Loughlin’s latest collection of prose and verse explores the creation of the capital’s tallest building from an original and unusual angle
POETRY/MEMOIR
Liberty Hall
By Michael O’Loughlin
New Island, €12.95
One of Austin Clarke’s later poems described the opening of Liberty Hall in 1965. This postmodern 17-storey tower was designed by the Irish trade union movement to represent progress and modernity.
Its non-reflective windows (suggesting openness and allowing passers-by to see in) were replaced after a UVF bomb seven years later. For decades, however, it remained Dublin’s tallest building, looking down over a state whose starting ...