AS I SEE IT
BY MARIANNE HERON
It’s a familiar story. It’s holiday time, you are out and about in an unfamiliar place, when nature calls. When you have to go, you have to go … but where? This is the point where calling toilets public conveniences can be an oxymoron. They may be far from convenient and may not even exist.
Needs must, so you then have to go to a bar, a café or a shop and ask to use the facilities. It can be embarrassing, their toilets are meant for customers. You may end up buying a drink or a coffee even if you didn’t want one. Some places have combination locks on their loos, in others you may have to ask for a key. You can’t blame businesses for being a bit iffy over a situation which is caused by local authorities failing to provide what the public need.
As for publicly accessible facilities, some petrol stations do have toilets and some don’t, and unless you are making a pit stop at a major petrol retailer like Applegreen, it’s hard to know if you will find relief. Some department stores have toilets that aren’t that easy to access, particularly for the disabled, when they are situated on top floors. Supermarkets, where you might think they would look after customers who spend plenty of money on their premises, have surprisingly bad attitudes about toilets. Lidl seems to me to be about the best, with conveniently – ha, ha – situated and easily accessible loos.
Generally speaking, lavatories, whether public conveniences or those in businesses for public use, are not cause for admiration. The best you can hope for is that they are functional, clean and haven’t run out of loo paper. Calling them rest rooms is a bit of a misnomer, as they aren’t places where you want to linger.
Now there is a timely focus on publicly usable small rooms thanks to Dyno-Rod, the drainage experts. The 50-year-old company is inviting entries for a SuperLoo contest. It’s a repeat of the popular competition they ran back in 1992 and the facilities will be assessed on a dozen criteria from cleanliness to the ply of the loo paper. Last time round, the Slieve Russell Hotel was judged to have the most praiseworthy of powder rooms. It’s a chance for businesses to show how they take pride in every aspect of their customers’ experience, according to Dyno-Rod.
“We have spent decades travelling around Ireland. We’ve seen an array of public facilities in our time,” says Paul Crowley Operations Director Dyno-Rod. “We now find that what used to be in the smallest room is often a place where businesses focus significant attention for their customers. The rise of social media has added to this, of course. We have had quite the response to SuperLoo, it shows people really do take notice when they use the public restrooms.”
My most recent favourite loo experience was at Irene Kelly’s Green Road Gardens at Battlestown, Co. Wexford. Situated in a wooden lodge in the garden, the loo, complete with an antique pull chain and overhead cistern, is in a room furnished with charming touches including a gorgeous flower arrangement. It gets its picture taken as often as the features in this enchanting garden, open to groups by appointment and for gardening and basket weaving courses.
Back to public conveniences in general: a good way to find how the facilities measure up is to ask someone in the tourism business. Pat Tynan launched Kilkenny Walking Tours back in 1983, offering tours of the medieval city to visitors, weaving together history with stories like those of Dame Alice Kyteler and the Tolsel Kilkenny Cats. Pat lists off the city’s three public conveniences, at the Parade, at the Market Cross and McDonagh shopping centres and mentions the helpfulness of some pubs. “We are not too badly off, loo-wise in Kilkenny,” says Pat.
Formal loos have a long history, using them was a social event for Romans, a place to meet up with multi-seat conveniences. Kilkenny has some good examples of medieval loos, one in a tower at Kilkenny Castle with a seat over the moat and one in Maudlin Castle with an exterior chute. Known as garderobes, these privies for the privileged were once used to store clothing where draughts and ammonia repelled fleas and lice. Times have changed!
