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By Ciaran Cuffe Dublin city, particularly as Hayley Farrell notes [p64-65] the north inner city, could do with more parks, and luckily there is space to spare. Apart from the dozens of parcels of derelict land under the control of Dublin City Council there are also many large sites under the control of NAMA, and other bodies. The Law Society controls a significant site beside the Luas on Benburb Street and CIE controls a large site beside the Jervis Centre. These lands could be converted to parks, even on a temporary basis as with the pop-up ‘Granby Park’ that appeared on Dominick Street in the north inner city in 2013. One of the more suitable sites is a large empty patch of land just off Church Street between Smithfield and the Four Courts. The site of the former Maguire and Paterson match factory has languished derelict for over a decade.  It is over an acre in size, and the Red Line Luas passes by its northern boundary. Tourists on their way to the Generator Hostel and the Jameson Whiskey Corner pause as they go past, and gaze down into the crater. The factory that occupied the site was demolished in 2002. Since then it has been under the ownership of the Office of Public Works. An archaeological dig in 2009 revealed traces of an old Viking House, but the site has been vacant since the dig occurred. On a recent visit to the site bulrushes and reeds were growing on the lower end of the site, and buddleia, rushes, grasses and willow trees had colonised the upper levels. A blackbird was perched next to some rubbish and a traffic cone. Even in the space of a few short years the site is developing its own unique ecosystem that could be protected as part of a park proposal. (Note to the OPW – send in the bulldozers to level off the site again, quick!) An inquiry to the Office of Public Works received a reply from Commissioner John Sydenham who stated: “The site is being retained by the State for development and is under consideration for the possible location for key institutions of State (sic) in the medium term. To this end I am afraid that we could not consider any other use for the site even on a temporary basis”. To be fair he went on to say that they would consider placing information panels giving details of the archaeological investigations undertaken at the site. They also have removed some of the ugly hoarding that surrounds the site, allowing the public to see what they’re missing in the green chasm beside them. The beleaguered north inner city is desperate for more parks and space for children to play. This could be an ideal site for sports and leisure. It is big enough to accommodate a five-a-side football pitch or basketball court as well as trees and planting. Instead it has been an eyesore for over a decade. Will it take another ten years before the OPW decide to do something with the site? Ten years ago the OPW said they wanted to build a Land Registry Office on the site. If they really need more office space they could consider using some of the Dublin Institute of Technology buildings that will be vacated arising from the move of the Institute to Grangegorman. It is unacceptable for the OPW to say they are retaining the site for ‘strategic’ purposes. In the north inner city it is strategic to plan to create an environment suitable for families! They should put up or move on and make this oasis available to the local community. Smithfield has only a handkerchief of greenery on it, and is mostly cobblestones. It always seems to come back to land in Ireland, and both individuals and institutions seem to hang on to it atavistically, even if it lies uselessly derelict for generations.  It is unacceptable that large urban sites are left empty for decades, doubly so in the hands of a public agency. The board of the OPW under chairperson Claire McGrath as well as Junior Minister Simon Harris should rethink their decision to leave these lands idle. If you’d like to see the area converted to park, even on a temporary basis why not drop a line to info@opw.ie or Simon.Harris@Oireachtas.ie, and perhaps you’d copy your email to me at Ciaran.Cuffe@DublinCity.ie. The campaign for a new park in the North Inner City starts here. •

By Michael Smith After the Second World War private cars began to fill the streets of cities across the western world. In the 1960s Dublin’s traffic authorities began to contemplate radical interventions to accommodate the influx of cars. One scheme involved covering the river over and using the new surface for road widening and car parking. This was rejected but Dublin’s quays are nevertheless today almost completely dominated by vehicular traffic. Traffic danger, crime, noise and air pollution makes them a blockage that cyclists and pedestrians make an effort to avoid. Some of the riverside footpaths are so narrow they can only be passed in single file.  The advent of the port tunnel has failed to alleviate the sense that crossing the quays risks a mowing down by a fast-moving juggernaut. The quays have the potential to become a great urban boulevard. The river needs to become an asset, not an untouchable sump. The quays are the city’s principal artery, indeed its most distinctive feature, and they should be a destination in themselves, not a means to an end: a great city’s living room: a worldwide urban-renewal talking point. The rejuvenated quays could support a pedestrian trail linking the IFSC and the National Convention Centre in the east with the National Museum at Collins Barracks, Heuston Station and the Phoenix Park in the west and in between inject life into the knife-edge city markets and Smithfield areas. The High Line in NewYork was conceived by two local artists who set up a trust and  spent seven years campaigning before finally convincing the authorities to solidify the plan which hovers like an oasis over the hard-edged meat-packing district. Dublin needs an alliance of residents, planners, architects and radical artists to promote something subversive of the mediocrity that can hold it back. Dublin City Council has committed to prepare a local area plan for the quays by 2017 “in order to develop the public realm of the river and anchor it as a central civic spine”. Plans are being drawn up for a change in traffic on Dublin’s north quays introducing a new two-way cycle lane and restricting private motorists to one lane instead of two, while maintaining the  bus lane. City council chief executive and zealous cyclist Owen Keegan has acknowledged the proposal would slow up traffic on the busy north quays, but told the Irish Times “It is not something that we have to apologise for…Cycling has to be for the unbrave as well”. Removing one and sometimes two traffic lanes would have an obvious short-term effect on the flow of traffic along the quays. It should not, however, be a substitute for Greening. Fresh radical thinking is needed and unfortunately for those who actually might use the space it is not possible to have an inspirational park next to lines of traffic. We should be planning for a hundred years not five years hence. While integrated with the water the whole space needs to feel self-contained. Wild greenery could be peppered with diversions such as bandstands, cafes, playgrounds, meadows; activities such as cycling and picnicking; and events including occasional markets, funfairs, film showings and the like. But the ensemble should centre on the omphalos of the city, the river. The quays should afford ready access to the river so it rings with the joy of organised leisure. Imagine a Liffey alive with boating, canoeing, swimming, diving, fishing and the like. Perhaps a barrage would be necessary to sustain the tide above the level necessary for the Liffey to become something it has not been in a century – useful. In this regard, the boardwalk is ambiguous being perhaps as much a substitute, as a complement, for imaginative thinking about the quays’ relationship to the water.  Proposals for a Suas – an overhead cable car intermittently mooted for the quays – need to be scrutinised with extreme aesthetic caution for the quays have their own gentle momentum. Inevitably, even the modest proposal from City Hall was attacked, including by the Irish Times’ Kathy Sheridan who seemed to feel Dublin with its privileges and responsibilities gets a good deal already and that the quays need to be as much for optionless commuters as for locals and Dubliners generally. She seems wedded to the notion that someone else’s environment can be ordained somehow secondary to the interests of others, specifically those of free-riding if immiserated commuters. Meanwhile there are separate but linked plans to extend the scandalously under-usable Croppies Acre memorial park, at the front of Collins Barracks, out onto the riverside, allowing for a car-free public park and two-way walking and cycle route in the vicinity. Public consultation could start in the new year, according to the city council. It’s all go in the City Council but breaking taboos shouldn’t limit its imaginative horizons to the short and medium term. •

By Ciaran Cuffe It’s Culture Night in Galway. Under a small marquee a few steps away from Eyre Square plans are being discussed for the future of Wood Quay, an historic part of the city that has become over-run by traffic and parking in recent years. Students from the School of Architecture at the University of Limerick (SAUL) have been sketching out ideas for the upgrading of this historic streetscape. Currently the area is a morass of car-parking with a sliver of a park that you’d miss if you blinked while walking past. Wood Quay was one of the earliest inhabited parts of Galway. There was once a Quay where cargo and passenger boats landed from Connemara, and a potato market took place where now there are now only cars. Wood Quay is triangular in shape with narrow footpaths and is surrounded by a mixture of two and three story shops, pubs and houses. The area feels like it was busier in years gone by. The project is being run by Rosie Webb, the Galway City architect. She is hoping that the project will open up a debate about parks and public space in the city. Local people have been invited to participate, and a handful of them turned up to add their voices to the discussion. An older man raises the problem of an increasing student population who live nearby and party loudly on Thursday nights leaving detritus of urine and vomit behind. A young Brazilian couple take their cat to the small grassed area by the lake, but complain about its lack of maintenance. Cars are everywhere, parked on footpaths, on double-yellow lines, and in the allocated spaces provided. Some of the students’ projects involve reorganising or removing part of the car parking. Local businesses voice their concerns. A local paint shop owner is worried that less parking means fewer customers, but no-one is really sure. Perhaps the city could follow the example of the Dublin City Beta projects where changes are made temporarily  and can easily be reversed. This might allow a temporary park or performance area to be installed at Wood Quay. If it doesn’t work out it can be removed, and other ideas can be considered or it can simply remain in its current state. This might help avoid the cost over-runs that occurred when the city’s Eyre Square was redesigned a few years ago. It could well turn out that a carefully designed small public park might become a catalyst for the regeneration of this historic area. However, in order for changes to be acceptable they will have to be made in partnership with the area’s residents and businesses. An important issue that comes up time and time again is the lack of management and maintenance of the public domain. These issues will have to be addressed by the Local Authority and An Garda Síochána if residents are to feel confident about the area’s future. It won’t be easy to achieve though, as Government and elected representatives are under pressure to reduce Local Property Taxes and spending wherever possible. Galway’s economy is heavily reliant on tourism. Certainly Wood Quay is underperforming, and improvements such as introducing a well maintained larger park have the potential to revolutionise the area. The conundrum in Galway is typical of the challenges facing towns and cities around Ireland. A spiral of decline has led to families living further out of town and commuting in by car. Much of the town centre is left to a transitory population of students and temporary workers who have not the clout or commitment to improve the area that they live in. More parking is then required which consumes the space that could be given to other uses such as parks, playgrounds or markets. One way of breaking this vicious circle is for Councils and citizens to come up with a vision for what improvements it might be possible to achieve in the short to medium term. The people of Wood Quay have yet to agree on the common vision for the future of their area, but the work with the Council, the area’s residents and the students from the University of Limerick appears promising. •