When we ran the brief report yesterday about the proposed 13-storey "strategic development" apartment block plumb in the middle of a reasonably harmonious medium-rise part of Dun Laoghaire's harbour-front, there were those who thought April 1st had come early, and twice over too, for good measure.
It is so out of keeping with the buildings immediately around it that it has to be a joke.
And on top of that, nobody knowingly builds a 13-storey structure, such that in some more southern countries a certain reasonable superstition ensures that if a building is so high as to accommodate a thirteenth floor, it doesn't actually exist – you go up straight from the 12th to the 14th.
Then too, we must remember that as the normally pragmatic men and women of the motor trade saw the 13 car registration looming on the horizon as 2013 approached, they saw to it that the government was apprised of the marketing benefits of dividing the year in two for registration purposes, and so our new cars went straight for being 12 to being 131, thus there's no such thing as an unlucky 13-registered car on Irish roads.
On top of that, this is Dun Laoghaire, the global home of One Design Racing. Yet although there have been hundreds of numbered One Designs sailing out of Dun Laoghaire since Ben Middleton and his friends in the Water Wags started the whole business in 1887, not one – repeat, NOT ONE – of the many classes has sent out a boat carrying the sail number 13.
Water Wag ODs racing in Dun Laoghaire Harbour. Not one of the hundreds of Dublin Bay One Designs has ever carried the sail number 13. Photo: Con Murphy
So when somebody proposes building a 13 storey apartment block, we can only assume it's all for the birds, they're flying a kite, and they'll blindside the negotiations (which are already made murky by referring the "strategic planning" trope) by graciously bringing it down to the 12 storeys they originally intended.
That said, occasionally a 13th floor will slip in by accident when too much building is happening at once. We are irresistibly reminded of the story of a Parisian housewife entertaining her lover in her apartment, and the concierge phoned up to warn her that her husband had unexpectedly returned.
"Pierre" says she to the boyfriend, "Pierre, you must get out of the window immediately, and hide on the ledge outside"
"But Nicole" says he, "We are on the thirteenth floor."
"Pierre" she hisses, "this is no time for superstition….."
