Image taken from limerickleader.ie

The Land of Milk and Money

Limerick's Co-operative Creameries

With the news that Limerick City and County Council is to redevelop the former Cleeve's Factory site I decided to revisit the first job I officially work on with my father with my MUBC under my belt, the former Glin Co-operative Creamery. I also like to think I have managed to find the most tenuous of links between creameries and Easter (milk,,,,,chocolate....Easter eggs!) and even to Nationalism and Home Rule. My father's practice carried out an historical report and photographic survey of this former co-operative creamery, a building type completely alien to me. The Cleeve's Factory site was bought from Golden Vale by the local authority in 2014. Thanks to it being a location for eva International in the same year I got to walk around this impressive complex so close to the city centre. 

In 1889 Ireland's first Co-operatives were established in Doneraile Co. Cork and in the same year Limerick has the title of having the first co-operative creamery in Dromcollogher. The site is now a National Dairy Co-operative Museum (For contact details click here). The importance of the practice and rituals of the dairy farmers conveying their milk to the co-operative creameries is recorded in papers such as this excellent one by Dr Maura Cronin of MIC 'Remembering Creameries'. The delivery of your cows' produce was your opportunity to catch up with the daily news (before the invention of Twitter). Even as we get more urbanised we cannot forget Ireland's bovine servitude; we assist in their conception, birth, milking, feeding, death. It was this job that I got to meet the wonderful Tom Donovan, an authority on the history of the area (and much more) and editor of the Old Limerick Journal which I have been honoured to contribute to on two occasions and hopefully more in the future. I have yet to ask him how much this city girl shocked him asking why the creamery laid off staff during December and my complete ignorance of the fact that dairy cows did not natural produce milk all year round. There is no farming on either side of my family. The closest anyone came to a cow was the short spell my grand-uncle Tommy spent in his late teens in the tannery. He described the hellish smell to me as a child to help me understand who he could not move to Dublin fast enough. Perhaps it is why he settled in Howth with its freshest of air. 

Image taken by Declan Gilleece.

Glin Co-operative Dairy Society was one of the first co-operative diary societies to be established in County Limerick in 1891[1]. The official opening was attended by the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Horace Plunkett, and the Knight of Glin, R.A Anderson, Lord Emly and Lord Monteagle[2]. Addresses were also read from the committees of the Ballyhahill and Castlemahon Co-operative Dairy Societies[3]. The idea was that it would be owned and managed entirely by the farmers who have taken shares[4] serving a radius of approximately 3 miles. This predates the founding of the Irish Agricultural Organisation (now ICOS) in 1894, the brainchild of its President Horace Plunkett set up to help and advice the fledgling co-ops[5]. Limerick had a formidable tradition of dairying, being a stronghold area in the Golden Vale region. Glin was a natural choice logistically for the site of a creamery as there were several large dairy farms and an established butter market held in the town as well as nearby Limerick and Cork cities in the nineteenth century[6]. The railway and port of nearby Foynes along with the Glin pier built in 1876 and the addition of the jetty on the banks of the Shannon in 1895[7] facilitated the exportation of the butter to the Irish and English market. 

The first manager of the Glin Co-operative creamery was Thomas Normile of Killacolla[8] and the committee had eleven members. The earliest known President is recorded as Patrick Fitzgerald and the venture was financed by loans from the Munster & Leinster Bank in Tarbert. Along with the manager they would decide the price band for the milk. Unlike many early creameries the local clergy had no involvement in the committee. The main product manufactured by the creamery was slightly salted sweet cream butter with cheddar cheese production commencing around the 1930s when a second building was constructed on the site as store room, cheese room and poultry rearing. The cheese made by the Glin creamery was known as Country Squire and turkey plucking took place in the adjoining room to the main store.  The managers over the years after Normile were Timothy Donovan, Michael O’Connor, Maurice Fitzgerald, Donie Cusack, Patrick Roche and Davie O’Sullivan.

The butter produced by the Glin Co-op creamery was of a renowned high quality partly due to its cooling which was aided by the importation of ice from Norway for the ice houses built for the thriving Glin fish market where salmon taken locally were bought and then sent directly from there to Billingsgate, London for sale. Ice was needed to pack the fish to keep them fresh[9]. A dairy inspector report dated 13 August 1897 confirms this As the creamery is now receiving ice daily and I gave them information how to use this to the best advantage, I expect good results in the future both in quantity and quality[10]. The idea was to set up a factory where farmers could bring their surplus milk and dispose of it for so much a gallon. In the creamery the milk would be separated into whey (or backmilk), which the farmer received for calf and pig rearing, and butter milk. This separation was achieved by separators powered by steam engines run by coal brought in through Foynes. Large amounts of uniform colour, texture and flavour was produced and exported. A lease was signed between the Glin Co-operative Dairy Society Ltd and the Knight of Glin on the 15 April 1925 for the yearly rent of £11.10.0 and stating that the term of the lease was 70 years from 29 September 1919[11]. The property is described as ‘the parcel of ground and yard with a creamery and buildings therein having a frontage to Church Street of 111 feet.’ This replaced the original lease between the creamery and James O’Driscoll who was owed money by the Knight of Glin and therefore sub-letted the house and garden at the back to recoup his money. This co-operative creamery was successful in its day with the participation of 149 dairy farmers at its height as well as employing fifteen people[12]. The milk was delivered by horse, donkey, jennet and cart in wooden churns which were made locally by the coopers Mangans, O’Briens, Culhanes and Lynches. The farmers would queue up Church Street in their carts from 7am until 11am to get their milk processed and on the train to the Dublin and British markets by the evening[13]. This was not only business but an important social aspect to rural life for the dairy farmers to keep up with the local news and goings on. The creamery constructed the commercial premises across the road in 1948 as a co-op farm store to sell goods such as feed and fertiliser and remains as one to this day[14].

Building Design

The original creamery building as it stands today is simple in appearance consisting of a long, gable-fronted, multiple-bay, detached double-height building with a pitched roof with cast-iron louvered vents and two metal rooflights. Its cast-iron rainwater goods and slates have been replaced in recent years[15] as well as the square headed casement windows. Exterior walls constructed with locally quarried stone and smooth rendered. Internally the ceiling was lined with plain rebated timber for hygienic purposes[16]. A sliding timber battened door to weightbridge platform was added later to the side of the creamery accessed by concrete steps. 

Image taken by Emma Gilleece

The creamery was extended thanks to the designs of Limerick born architect Conor O'Brien who I wrote about back in June 2015 in my post on the AK Ilen- Concrete Stew. O'Brien was a Home Ruler and in 1910 he was elected a council member of the Dublin Industrial Development Association, which promoted Irish manufacturers and the Irish Agricultural Organisation Society (I.A.O.S.). Left is a plan attached to letter from I.A.O.S. secretary in the National Archives to the creamery manager in 1912 for extension of main building at the gable end up to the boundary line to provide an office designed by O'Brien. 

The functions of the creamery would have been in a typical linear arrangement such as the mechanical separators, centrifugal pump to elevate skim milk, water pump, rolling churns, measuring drum (used before the advent of scales), test churns and a butter worker. The engine room had to be separate from the dairy because of all the coal dust and fumes. Initially seven people were employed full time; a secretary, manager, manager’s assistant, manager’s helper, fireman (to stoke the steam engine), dairymaid (whose wages were second to the manager[17]) and the assistant dairymaid. The yard is substantial as it was required for deliveries. Along with the main creamery building later additions included the 'cheese house' for the manufacturing of cheddar cheese in 1928 and in the mid thirties turkey rearing. The cheese factory building is a single story construction with asbestos slate roof with the verge pointed in cement, metal roof lights and a small atrium. The original terrazzo floor can be seen in the entrance hall which runs halfway up the walls, employee toilets and underneath the modern flooring in the main part of the building.

On the 24th of Sept 1928 Glin Co-operative Dairy Society Ltd amalgamated with Turraree Co-operative Creamery Ltd, a small creamery 3 miles away which began in 1902 on the land belonging to Daniel Geoghegan. Glin Co-operative Dairy Society joined Golden Vale Co-operative Creameries, Charleville, Co. Cork in 1973. It established a processed cheese plant with the objective of providing a centralised outlet for the cheddar cheese being produced by the smaller co-ops in the Golden Vale hinterland. Ireland’s entry into the EEC in 1973 lead to two rounds of rationalization resulting in amalgamations that reduced the number of creameries substantially throughout the country[18]. This situation was compounded by the introduction of milk quotas in 1984. This intensified the movement out of small scale milk production and led to the concentration of milk supplies on a smaller number of larger holdings[19]. After the amalgamation with Golden Vale, the Glin no longer functioned as a creamery but instead milk was now delivered to this branch by local suppliers where it was chilled and, in the summer, transported daily to the factory at Charleville. Instead of milk separation it now just pasteurised about 30 gallons of milk a day for sale to local people. The first bulk collecting lorry came in the same year with Joe McGrath and Joe Buckley as the collectors. This was deemed an uneconomic and troublesome exercise by Golden Vale for the benefit of the locals and so the company decided that this would cease during the summer of 1975. Shortly after this decision was made the Glin Development Association approached the company to see if the decision could be reversed but, in spite of further consideration, the company decided that the operation would have to stop from September 1^st[20]. On being informed that there was no pasteurised milk for sale local man Mortimer McElligott positioned himself outside the creamery and lay on the road so as to obstruct the lorry taking milk to Charleville and had to be removed by the gardaí. The premises remained unused and were sold for £20,000 in 1988[21] to Seamus Danaher who set up a furniture business there.

A year after this report I was given the task of getting objects for the Ranks Exhibition put on by Limerick Museum & Archives in collaboration with the Hunt Museum with no money as budget did not stretch that far. When I saw the old photograph of the flour being weighed I remembered the butter scales abandoned in the Glin Co-op creamery and rang the current owner who was more than happy to give us a loan of it for the duration of the exhibition. It wasn't an exact match but it gave visitors an idea of how far industrial machinery has come. I quite like the old machines and the original idea of the co-operative movement. 

Author's Plea

There are calls by councillors to give this huge site a single use, as a convention centre. It is the hope of this blogger that somebody influential might stumble across this article online- I ask you to please consider donating part of the complex to the Ilen School ilen.ie/ to help continue a part of Limerick's heritage. Please do not allow the history of Cleeve's to dry up, continue the co-operative spirit. 

---

[1] The Limerick City & Counties of Limerick and Clare Directory, 1891-2. The title of first co-operative creamery in Ireland belongs to Drumcollagher in Co. Limerick which was established in 1889 and the second one was in Ballyhahill again in Co. Limerick (Carla Keating, Plunkett and co-operatives; past, present and future, p.92).

[2] The Munster News, 13 May 1891.

[3] ‘The Lord Lieutenant in the South’, 16 May 1891, The Irish Times.

[4] Pat Bolger, The Irish Co-operative Movement: its history and development, (1977), p.183.

[5] Cormac O’Gráda, ‘The Beginnings of the Irish creamery system, 1880-1914’, in Economic History Review, vol.30, no.2, p.284.

[6] ‘The land around the town is very fertile...There are several large dairy farms; a large butter market is held in the town, and great quantities of butter are made here and sent to Limerick and Cork for exportation.’ Samuel Lewis, Topographical Dictionary of Ireland, vol.1, 1837.

[7] Thomas J. Donoghue, ‘Glin in the early century’, in Ballyguiltenane Rural Journal, (Christmas, 1987), p.4.

[8] The Munster News, 8 April 1891.

[9] Mainchín Seoighe, Portrait of Limerick, (Limerick, 1982), p.77.

[10] Glin Co-operative Dairy Society General Correspondence files held by National Archives.

[11] The Glin Papers, P1/203, University of Limerick, p.130.

[12] O’Donoghue, p.4.

[13] Michael F. O’Sullivan, A history of Hospital and its environs, p. 107.

[14] Shop was built by building contractor Jack O’Connor (conservation with Mr Tom O’Donovan of Glin Historical Society).

[15] New roof installed in 1971 (conversation with former creamery manager Dave Sullivan).

[16] Patrick & Maura Shaffrey, Irish countryside buildings, p.95

[17] John Hough, Ireland’s Co-operative Heartland Ardagh C.D.S, a history 1891-1974, (Limerick, 1997), p.6.

[18] Carla King & Liam Kennedy, ‘100^th anniversary Irish Co-operatives; from creameries at the crossroads to multinationals,’ in History Ireland, Vol.2, no.4 (winter, 1994), p.40.

[19] Hough, p.96.

[20] ‘Court order to stop picketing at creamery’, Irish Times, 5 September 1975.

[21] Peter Somers and Michael McGrath, Golden Vale Remembered 1948-2001, (2006), p.34.

Worshiping the Modern; Christ the King

Cork people seem to be natural boasters, an innate self-confidence that often grates against the rest of us cynical, flaw-seeking folk. One thing they can certainly show off about is having the first Modernist church in the land, Christ the King Church at Turner's Cross. Furthermore it holds the title of being first ever concrete church in Ireland. It is hard to find fault with this magnificent expression of a nation that has aligned itself with the Catholic church while also boldly throwing its arms open to welcome the rest of the twentieth century. The power of the church to strike awe in the viewer emanates from the Christ statue at the doorway. Its staggered bays of the front and side elevations remind me of Giants Causeway, as if Jesus rose from the bedrock and these impressive concrete shards sprung up with him. Sculpture was designed by American sculptor and painter John Storr, who had been a student of Rodin and had worked with Frank Lloyd Wright and Louis Sullivan. Local sculptor John Maguire made the finished sculpture and worked on the marble altars (you can see a picture I took of the altar below beneath the altar cloth. It's such a shame altars get hidden). From his arms are these jazzy rays of concrete light. His upper arms starting off the chevron shape of the Art Deco age.  Chicago architect Barry Byrne got the commission to design the church for this new parish in 1928.

St Francis Xavier.Image from Wikipedia

After seeing a Chicago Architectural Club exhibit in 1902 he sought employment with the aforementioned Frank Lloyd Wright and worked as an apprentice in his Oak Park studio, Illinois until 1907. Byrne's style moved away from the Prairie School becoming more simplified but yet he undoubtedly took away Wright's appreciation for the uses and the aesthetic of concrete. Christ the King is considered the first of Byrne's important ecclesiastical trio; Church of St. Francis Xavier in Kansas City, Missouri (1949), and St. Benedict's Abbey in Atchison, Kansas (1951-1957). Evidently Byrne was so devoted to concrete that he ceased to design brick edifices after Cork. The foundations were blessed on 21 July 1929 and the church opened on 25 October 1931 with one of the largest suspended-ceiling churches in Europe. The building is larger than you would expect standing on the outside, with a seating capacity of 1200. The stepped form is carried through to the interiors including the plaster ceiling and the altar reredos. I kept having to remind myself that this church was designed in the late twenties. I say thankfully the original brick and wood church envisaged could not be achieved with the £30,000 budget (inclusive of interiors) allocated for it hence concrete as the main construction material with wonderful results. The economy of funds let to an economy of materials and a simplicity of the bright open internal space matched by few Irish churches. The black marble terrazzo floor is as stylish as any luxury hotel and the sparing use of stained glass windows and marbles is effective. Ready mix concrete was unheard of at the time so it's raw material was equally as radical as it's design. Today the church retains much of it's original character and layout after renovations in 2002. The Irish Architectural Archives hold copies of the drawings for Christ the King Church which were donated by Shane O’Toole.
Christ the King is a landmark for Irish architecture let alone modern church building. However the design of the church was controversial and received with a mixed response at the time. For whatever reason Christ the King church did not immediately influence Irish church design which continued in imitation of earlier styles of architecture well into the 1960s. Modernist architecture was regarded as suitable for hospitals, factories and the like; however there were doubts among some of the clergy about its suitability for ecclesiastical buildings.The Catholic Church and Church of Ireland staunchly continued their reverence of the revived Classical and Gothic styles of the previous century. A year after the opening of Christ the King saw the International Eucharistic Congress held in Dublin with J.J. Robinson (of Robinson, Keefe Devane) as its architect.  The pageantry of this event was done in a Palladian setting. Ireland would have to wait until the likes of Liam McCormick 's(Corr & McCormick Architects) design for The Church of Our Lady & St Michael in Ennistymon, Co. Clare to see another concrete beauty to worship. 

There is an excellent history and archive of photographs of the church at turnerscross.com

[Author's note: Music to read this post to. I felt like an Empress on top of the world that afternoon Beethoven's Emperor Concerto]

For the second day of my visit I had to do the good Catholic thing of making a pilgrimage to the Vatican City. I was looking forward to seeing the pictures from my Leaving Cert History of Art book come to life. Additionally the concept of a city within a city like a Russian doll fascinated me. Being from Limerick this was nothing new as historically the city comprised of three distinct towns.

When I booked my flights I was unaware of how the Epiphany was still such an important Holy day. I am deficient the necessary patience to deal with long queues. Luckily for me it appears that everybody paid a visit to Pope Francis' gaff the previous day so I only had to wait about ten minutes. This involved airport-like security (I suppose we were entering a new country after all) walking through a metal detector and bag x-rayed. St Peter's Basilica was designed principally by Bramante, Michelangelo and Bernini. It is one of the largest churches in the world and regarded as one of the holiest Catholic shrines. The area now covered by the Vatican City had been a burial ground for the numerous executions in the Circus of Nero. On first entering you are faced with Bernini's impressive colonnade four columns deep frame the trapazoidal entrance to the Basilica. This is St Peter's Square on a quiet day. It is a shame that the fencing is there (as seen in photo) as it gave the area a theme-park feel. 

Nothing prepares you for the richness or the ornate interiors. Everything is vying to attract your eyes. The visitor feels completely dwarfed by the scale of everything in the building. This church was designed first by Michelangelo with Maderno's naves added later. The wonderful Baldacchino (pavilion-like structure beneath the dome) was designed by Bernini. At 30 metres tall it is claimed to be the largest piece of bronze in the world. It is always very strange seeing a famous work of art in the flesh. Michelangelo's Pieta is smaller than I had imagined but nevertheless the maternal love and heartbreak of a mother holding the dead body of her only child cannot fail to move you. After taking in the beauty of the ground floor it was now time to move up towards the heavens and make the climb to the cupola of the Basilica. Michelangelo had redesigned Bramante's dome in 1547.The dome rises to a total height of 136.57 metres from the floor of the Basilica to the top of the external cross. It is the tallest dome in the world.

Being cocky Irish people we of course got tickets to go 'a piedi.' The lift was for the old and infirm. Tickets were €6 per adult. Still inside the building I started to see what type of height we were dealing with. All the people below were so small as you can see in the photo to the left with the protective grating. Boy was that climb tough! To keep us motivated every now and so often I would say "we have just earned two scoops of ice-cream", "we have just earned four scoops of ice-cream." It was a bucket I think by the end of it. You would not want to be a person carrying a lot of weight to be able to be able to fit through the monastic-like spiral staircases towards the top. The ascent was well worth it once we got to the top and visually took in the city. Every building unified in this exquisite architectural sea. My eye of course was drawn immediately to the Aula Nervi as it became known. Enigeer Pier Luigi Nervi's Paolo VI Audience Hall was commissioned by Pope Paul VI in 1963 and it was inaugurated in 1971 (see image below left). A family affair this reinforced concrete building was realised with the assistance of his architect son Vittorio Verdi. The auditorium can accommodate up 12,000 people covered by a double curving parabolic vault. Next to grab my eyes of course was the magnificent St Peter's Square with the Vatican Obelisk at its centre. Standing at 25.5m tall, made of red granite this obelisk was removed from Egypt by August to the Julian Forum of Alenxandria where it stoof until 37 AD when Caligula ordered the fourm demolished and the obelisk transferred to Rome. It was moved to its current site in 1586. As Rome was the centre of the Roman Empire the Papal City was the city of the powerful Roman Catholic empire. 

Alberti's 1776 V-shaped boulevard

The square is approached by the Via della Conciliazione which is linking the Vatican City and the centre of Rome. It lends the Basilica extra grandeur similar in Ireland to the main street of the estate villages in the lead up to the entrance to the landlords demesne. This road was constructed between 1936 and 1950 but plans were drawn up several times over the centuries. One such plan was Alberti's 'open' plan in 1776 consisting of a single V-shaped boulevard. Widely opposed instead for a 'closed' plan maintaining the 'spina' or spine of the structures between the square and the river Tiber. Mussolini resurrected the idea of a grand thoroughfare symbolically connecting the Vatican to the heart of the Italian capital. To fulfil this vision he turned to the fascist architects Marcello Piacentini and Attilio Spaccarelli. The controversial demolition began in October 1936 with many residents displaced en masse to settlements outside of the city. Mussolini would create his own version of the square with the obelisk in the EUR district which I visited a few days later (future post). My breath was taken away with the view, the use of my legs from the hundreds of steps so it was the lift on the way down for us. I'll finish Day 2 in my next post with the Patheon and a fit out by David Chipperfield Architects, Of course the day was completed with lots of gelato!

My taste in buildings has always been relatively young (40-90 years) from those of the International Style, the super cool Art Decos, the Modernists right down to the Bruts of the seventies. This day last week I returned to Ireland after a week in Rome, a city that surprisingly satisfied my architectural grá. Rome is not frozen in time like Florence or Venice but nevertheless she is not a modern city. However she still retains her concrete expression of power, dominance and a vain attempt to return to ancient imperialism. The physical manifestation of the ideology of Mussolini's fascism remains. 

Rome to me is a marriage of two dominant personalities; the commanding presence of the quiet, wise older centre who jostles beside his younger louder, feisty queen. Each side stands their ground equally in this unlikely union full of drama; the grace and stature of the older city tempering the brash, high-spirited youth. He has seen many a war; she was never tested. The pomp of the younger pale marble structures compliments the confidence of the raw, earthy, rusty colours of the rendered older city. In terms of its morphology the city's medieval core has had no previous partners as you'd expect such as Victorian, Edwardian, Art Nouveau, etc. Rome does have contemporary buildings such as the MAXXI Museum by Zaha Hadid Architects and the new Congress Centre and hotel nicknamed 'the Cloud' by Fuksas Architects which is still under construction but already looks impressive. However the glory of the ancient and early twentieth century eras will never again be repeated. 

A recent friend I made in Dublin captivated me with the descriptions of his adoptive city of Rome. Having studied History of Art & Architecture and later Building Conservation in Irish universities the majority of our course material was centred around the principles of Classical architecture. The Georgians looked to what they perceived as the aesthetic truths of Vitruvius and Roman antiquity for inspiration. The symmetry and rhythm of Georgian architecture is what I grew up with near Limerick's Newtown Pery which made Dublin all the more familiar to me. In history of Art we learned about the Grand Tour that the landed gentry were expected to undertake in their youth taking in ancient ruins of Greece and Rome. Italy was a country that I had always planned on visiting but it was never in my top three. With the benefit of free accommodation I was presented with the opportunity to visit the city that was the originator of Irish architecture from the 18th century up to the present day with the odd trend of Georgian pastiche new builds. 

My plane landed in Fiumicino- Leonardo da Vinci International airport which is currently undergoing expansion. I could see the curve of the new roof from my seat like the beautiful contour of a woman's hip. During the short drive from the airport to the city we passed the EUR district. I could see Mussolini's Palazzo della Civiltà Italiano near the motorway, his so-called Square Colosseum. This heightened my excitement for my trip immensely and what was in store for me in the days to come. I will discuss that wonderful building in my next post. From there the car drove through an archway in the ancient city's walls and passed the Circus Maximus. It was as if we drove back in time. My first day (Wednesday) was spent walking around the centre near the Colosseum and the magnificent ruins of the Forum of Augustus. Halfway through the tour I was given a rooftop view of the city. The type of view the renders one speechless. What stroke me was each individual building was beautiful especially those who wore the passage of time without the touch up of paint or render. All the buildings in this ancient sea of bricks and mortar were of the same palette or russets, browns and some peach almost to the point of orange. 

It is indeed the colour orange that I take away with me from my trip and not just from the streetscapes. Every morning upon opening the shutters, to receive the soft morning kiss of

the January sun, I was greeted by the oranges on the tree outside. I was Eve in my Garden of Eden away from it all back home. My host's fruit ball was also full of the fruit. The food alone I could gush about. Bread that went stale the next day as it wasn't full of preservatives like Irish bread, the simplicity of the pasta and pizzas.....and the gelato. Everything there was just so relaxed. I think it's because everybody vents their rage through their cars! Even on the last day of my visit I still could not get my head around walking across the zebra-crossing with the green pedestrian light and still have all the cars and mopeds gunning for me. It is a small price to pay for the lifestyle. People live in the city centre over the shops and cafés. Villas converted to offices and apartments for single people, professional couples, families. All the laneways are full of life bursting with all kinds of shops including bookshops just for books printed in English. The trams and Metro system was very easy to navigate and a €1.50 gave you 100 minutes (from the time of first use) on all public transport. 

I will finish the post with the images taken on Day 1 of the Imperial Fora constructed between 46AD and 113AD. These forums were the very centre of the Roman Empire.  I have included a plan below that has Mussolini's new street he created in the 1920s outlined in red which destroyed part of these ruins. Buildings that we are all familiar with but were like a dream to me. Music everywhere and Italian sounded like poetry to my ear. Even the trees to me were sculptural and architectural. You will see that the roads run so close to these monuments. Some might tut but this is a living city and the traffic is the life force being pumped around it's urban arteries. I started falling for Rome the moment I clapped eyes on him with the bright blue skies and the rusty coloured rooftops. The unpredictability while always revealing something new. Never stopping. Familiarity and contradiction. It's inhabitants rushing in their cars as if in a Grand Prix but then stepping out to dine al fresco with a glass of wine stretching out that peaceful moment like magic. Truly living in it. Being in it. So relaxing and so intense at the same time. My eyes saturated with the visual splendor. Beauty that nearly brings you to tears. Tethering on the edge of bliss. 

The forum of Caesar and the Temple of Venus Genetrix

The Forum of Augustus with the temple of Mars Ultor

The new street in red cut through the forum of Augustus and also rows of homes which naturally sprung up around in during the intervening centuries.

The Altare della Patria (the Altar of the Fatherland). This was the most visible landmark to me walking around the various parts of the city.