The Luxuries Traditional Cache
Deise Boys: area has been transformed, now quite beautiful and with a gorgeous community garden adjacent to the old cache site. no sign of the cache, and with access now very confined as the long lane has been dissected, best to say goodbye.
Please note Use of geocaching.com services is subject to the terms and conditions
in our disclaimer.
O'Devaney Gardens originated as an early precursor to mixed social and private housing developments. All housing units were apartments. Thirteen buildings, each with four stories, and six apartments on each story. The private apartments quickly acquired the title 'The Luxuries'.
Built in the 1950s in an effort to clear the inner city of slums, it was also an early example of a public-private partnership. The private developer went bankrupt, the Corpo took control of the entire development, and luxuries disappeared and never returned.
The problems arose immediately. There was no playground provided, no community centre, indeed no facilities of any kind. The apartments were small. Repeated calls throughout the Sixties and Seventies to address the scale of the deprivation fell on deaf ears, and the heroin scourge took over in the Eighties.
This development would make the shortlist for a Bad Planning of the Twentieth Century Award.
Even the world-famous Celtic Tiger bypassed O'Devaney Gardens. Towards the end of the Tiger's reign, a new public-private partnership was announced to redevelop the entire 8 hectare site. Shortly afterwards, the private party was an early casualty of the banking fiasco. Dublin City Council announced a 10-year redevelopment plan. That plan has now been shelved.
Many of the original blocks have by now been demolished, more are boarded up, and one block near the cache site is currently being demolished. Meanwhile, there are still over 40 families resident in the delapidated estate which is in the advanced stages of decay.
The sense of exclusion is very evident in a physical way : high steel fences surround the entire estate, and notwithstanding the centrality of the location - metres from the Liffey and adjacent to Phoenix Park - there are only 3 access routes, located on Infirmary Road, North Circular Road and Thor Place, a small roadway ultimately leading to Oxmantown Road.
Access to the cache site is from Ashford Place, from the Oxmantown Road direction. The cache is placed outside the high steel fence, and the nearest route into the Gardens is via Thor Place.
The cache is a small container..
I hope this description does not put you off - this is a perfect opportunity to witness extreme urban decay from close up.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
gbc bs jnyy, arne gur jrr pbeare
Treasures
You'll collect a digital Treasure from one of these collections when you find and log this geocache:
Loading Treasures