Celtic Engagement Rings

Irish Kitchen

Irish Kitchen

Greed Caused The Demise Of The Irish Kitchen

The Celtic Tiger era of the period from 1994 to 2007 saw a vast increase in demand for new homes together with the associated huge appreciation in prices. The cost of land exploded resulting in developers trying to exploit every square metre of the expensive sites they bought. The outcome was of course skewered in favour of the builders with smaller houses and apartments offered to the public at sky high prices. “Shoebox apartments” was a common description of the homes for which unfortunate punters paid top dollar.

Houses fared little better with the traditional spacious semi-detached houses of the seventies and eighties consigned to the waste bin in architects offices, being supplanted by rows of terraced “town houses”; a title that were supposed to convey some aura to a small terraced house.  For ever increasing money one got smaller and smaller houses. From a design point of view the main change was in the kitchen and dining areas. The dining room was once the treasured but little used room in the older quality build houses. The purpose was to entertain those special guests that arrived a few times a year. It was a show-off room of the house along perhaps with the sitting room or lounge. The kitchen was once the most revered room in the home and given the generous space it deserved. However in the greed that accompanied the boom, a smaller measuring tape was taken to this precious area in the rush to increase profits.

With the emphasis on cutting down on space, general house design eliminated the dining room in favour of the kitchen/diner. This was basically one room partially divided by various means that included archways and L-shaped kitchen units that operated as functioning kitchen at one end and an eating area at the other end. Whilst one could agree with the notion that the traditional separate dining room was a waste of space for most of the time, its demise was merely to enhance the profits of developers.

Worse was to evolve as the era wore on with builders finding as many space-saving means as possible to offer less for more. As builders had already shrank bedrooms to claustrophobic proportions and couldn’t dare make them any smaller, they again turned their greedy gaze to the kitchen.  Kitchens became smaller and more compact and the term “kitchen/dining/living area” entered the estate agents jargon. Basically this was the one room that previously would have been the kitchen now divided into a multi-functional room, where you cooked, ate and relaxed or rather, tried to relax, after your days work.

Sadly the madness and desire to put profit over principle has led to a situation where most urban houses in Ireland now have what once was once a generously-sized room now serving a role of effectively three rooms and the traditional Irish kitchen is now the size of something you would find on a small boat. Bring back the old days when builders built homes instead of housing units.

 

 

  

 

About the Author

Seamus Maguire lives in County Louth, Ireland and who writes about Ireland as a hobby, but with a passion. He runs a website Kitchens Ireland which provides detailed information and interactive virtual tours of all the highlights that Ireland has to offer to the visitor. He also runs a portal called Ireland Home and Garden which offers all the useful information and tips about Ireland that will enhance the experience of the visitor to Ireland. 

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