From the hanging gardens of Babylon to the bonkers bicycle shed of Leinster Lawn.
A new wonder of the world has appeared on Merrion Street in Dublin.
There stand its new stands, majestic in their head-wrecking glory, shimmering in the hot September sunshine like a mirage in the desert.
Rising proudly from a petite footprint of pristine granite flags, surrounded by a sea of bog-standard tarmac on three sides and the side wall of the National Gallery on the other. A strip of artistically unkempt grass forms a small ground barrier between the building and the sensational new installation.
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The minerals in the granite sparkle beautifully.
Whisper it: it’s called mica. Mica is a controversial subject in Leinster House. This can only add to the piece’s cachet.
The bijou bike shed cost a monumental amount of money. But then, it is also a living thing, truly organic in keeping with the aspirational swathe of “wilding” on a few bits of Leinster Lawn nearby.
When it first materialised in public the installation was said to possess 18 stands. We counted 17 of them on Wednesday when the Dáil returned after the long summer break on the pretext of doing business even if people can think of nothing else but the looming general election.
The cost shape-shifted during the day too, with the Ceann Comhairle moved to offer a searing personal commentary on the bonkers bike shed as his opener to the first day of his final season as chair of the 33rd Dáil.
Seán O’Fearghaíl said it cost €336,000.
About an hour later, Paul Murphy of People Before Profit was declaring that it cost €350,000.
We hear the new national children’s hospital already has an order in for a dozen replicas, which will only cost marginally more thousands that the outrageous originals.
The bonkers bike shed was the talk of the Irish summer. In the months after Dáil Éireann rose, the ushers still continued escorting visitors on guided tours of Leinster House. Unfortunately, a wee dander out the door on the Merrion Street side of the building is not part of the tour. The route may have to be adjusted because we hear visitors are inquiring all the time now about the big-budget bike shed and whether they will get a chance to view it up close.
In fact, in the short time it has been in situ it has pushed sightings of Simon Harris, the Dáil bar, Mattie McGrath and the Healy-Raes off the top of the league table of what people want to see when they visit.
Leinster Lawn’s avant-mudgarde glass-and-steel erection is already shaping up to be a bucket-list destination for aficionados of Irish politics and students of bonkers public spending projects.
People have been photographing it through the railings. Staffers are taking selfies beside it.
They stare at it in fascination. Go up close. Then take a few steps back and squint, all the time marvelling at its breathtaking audacity.
Their reaction is uncannily similar to what happens in the Louvre when visitors see the Mona Lisa for the first time. They say: “It’s so small. I didn’t expect it to be this small.”
If it removed the patch of mangy grass between it and the wall, the National Gallery may have been able to claim the bicycle shed as its newest wing.
No wonder the bells summoning TDs to the first sitting of the new term didn’t ring on Wednesday afternoon. Bells are for bikes and bikes reign supreme.
The Ceann Comhairle apologised for their absence, but then he was in as much of a tizzy as everyone else about the most expensive small bike shed in the world on which to blow a fortune.
He was determined to get his spoke in first, mortified at the thought that the public thinks politicians are responsible for saddling the public purse with the cost of this unique parking project.
“Members of this house have received countless emails, texts and phone calls about the exorbitant cost of the shelter,” he declared to an all-party outbreak of concerned nodding.
“Nobody can understand how a simple structure to park bikes ended up costing €336,000 of taxpayers’ money. I know that I speak for everyone in this House when I say that it’s a profound embarrassment and the depth of public anger is entirely justified.”
In his role as chairman of the Houses of the Oireachtas Committee, he said: “I am hauling in the chief bottle washer at the Office of Public Works for a grilling next week and by the time we’re finished it will make the RTÉ flip-flop interrogations look like an episode of Peppa Pig.”
Or words to that effect.
However, if the Ceann thought his intervention would take the air out of the bike saga’s tyres, he was wrong.
Murphy was equally incandescent – only he managed to tie in his anger at the cost of this run-of-the mill facility with the fact that the company that installed it was once-upon-a-time connected to the businessman who once-upon-a-time paid for some of Paschal Donohoe’s posters to go up on lamp-posts in the last election.
“I am not quite sure what the tone or the implication of that is, a Ceann Comhairle,” replied a puzzled Taoiseach.
Mattie McGrath wanted answers too. But the Taoiseach, who commented during the summer on the eye-watering cost, couldn’t give him any. He wanted to know about the party leader who asked for a bicycle shelter to be built in the grounds. The matter had been discussed at a meeting of the business committee.
His colleague, Michael Healy-Rae followed up on the query. Who is this person?
“I don’t know,” replied Harris. “But it wasn’t me.”
He was in great form after being mauled by hordes of adoring mammies at the Ploughing on Tuesday. He’s there again on Thursday and the spring in his step should be even springier after the results of this morning’s opinion poll.
Afterwards, MHR was still looking for answers. “The only thing we found out is that the leader who wrote looking for a bike shed out in the front, on the other side, isn’t Simon. He should go to each party leader and ask them, one by one, if they looked for this.”
Meanwhile, at the bonkers bike stands of Leinster Lawn, there were 12 vehicles parked in the sunshine. At least it wasn’t raining as the shelter only has one glass wall at the back which only runs across the top half.
But there are seven bollards in a tasteful line in front of the bike stands in case somebody reverses their car into the installation, the most expensive installation by a hundreds-of-thousands margin in Leinster House since the busts of Mary McAleese and Mary Robinson went in on the same day.
A statue of Sir Robert Stewart (1825-1894) stands beside it.
He was a famous composer, conductor and organist.
Meanwhile, the committees are gearing up. A member of the finance committee told us they will be tackling the bike shed next week. The Public Accounts Committee can’t be far behind.
Expect some back-pedalling.
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