All it takes for Galway to abandon its reputation as the chilled-out entertainer of Irish cities is for one of the world’s most renowned urban planners to arrive in town and call it as he sees it.
The observation by Prof Wulf Daseking that the entrance routes to Galway are “like looking at a mouthful of broken teeth” was an irresistible line and piqued the indignation of loyal natives to the county who are used to being assured that Galway is the apple of all eyes.
Speaking on the Galway Bay FM with Keith Finnegan, Fianna Fáil TD Éamon Ó Cuív argued that the entrance to the city via train or along the verdant Oranmore motorway was more pleasing than most.
“What he seems to be objecting to is that we live in houses,” he said, before quoting the line from the ballad Galway Bay — “Strangers came and tried to teach us their ways”.
When the professor was interviewed on RTÉ’s Drive Time, presenters Sarah McInerney and Cormac Ó hEadhra, proud Galwegians both, all but warned their guest that they’d be wearing the maroon jerseys for this one.
“You upset an awful lot of people in Galway and Dublin,” Ó hEadhra told him.
It turned into a lively conversation during which the German reiterated his amazement at the thoughtless, haphazard development which distinguished the choked arteries to the medieval city which enchanted him on a previous visit decade before.
“I remember very well the situation as it was 50 years ago. To tell the truth, I came by plane to Dublin and was picked up by a very good friend, Tony Reddy, and he drove me down to Galway. The first impression I had from the city was not the very best one. How a city shakes your hand, to persons who are coming from outside was, for me, arbitrary. I was really shocked,” said Daseking.
Tony Reddy, one of Ireland’s most distinguished and experienced architectural practitioners, is the chairman of the Academy of Urbanism and was a fellow speaker at last month’s conference where Daseking made the eye-catching remarks.
“He more or less said the same thing in the car,” said Reddy, laughing.
“That we have a laissez-faire system and it doesn’t work. That is what Wulf was saying. Whenever he goes around the world and talks about planning, he is not imposing ideas it is more that the system needs to completely change. That was the underlying message. Galway is one of our best cities,” he said.
Daseking has given Galwegians plenty of food for thought as they sit idling in traffic
The architect believes Irish cities have “come a long way” becoming “part of the knowledge economy worldwide and winning an awful lot of business.”
“But as they grow and become less sustainable, and traffic bound — and Galway is the worst in that regard — we are in danger of killing the goose that laid the golden egg,” he said.
“But the same is true in Dublin, Limerick and Cork. It is the core of those cities that are attractive. But they are being strangled by suburban development.”
This is undeniable. Anyone with even a cursory knowledge of Galway will have experienced the infuriating and unpredictable bouts of traffic gridlock and wondered at the apparent obsession with roundabouts.
Locals have a mental map of rat runs and alternative routes into the city where they then must try to find somewhere to ditch the car. But too often find that the side roads, too, are at a standstill with like-minded motorists. Beyond the city limits, the public transport system is limited.
Over the past 50 years, the city has tripled in population — from 29,000 in 1970 to 79,000 now — and the response has been to grow the city around the skeleton of a road framework designed to serve the needs of a much smaller society. In some ways, Galway planners have been responding to the exponential growth of their city. As Reddy sees it, the trouble can be traced to the stipulations laid out in the 1963 Local Government (Planning and Development Act).
“The way cities are planned in Ireland is based on the Anglosphere system. The 1963 planning act for Ireland was an identikit version of the British 1947 Act. Housing then was planned on eight houses to the acre: low-density housing. That was fine when we had a low population and slow growth,” he said.
“But it doesn’t support public transport, so you get a car-based city. We wrote the code for urban sprawl. And what we now have around every one of our cities is very elegant urban cores followed by this sprawl. Galway goes straight from medieval to urban sprawl. Essentially, our planning regulations are the reason for that.”
The provocative description used by Daseking arguably disguised the true worth of his message. He had, after all, travelled west to participate in a conference titled Galway: Reimagining the Irish City. It was presented by the Academy of Urbanism and the RIAI in partnership with Galway city council and was, by definition, an acknowledgement of the urgent need for change. Daseking’s message was essentially one of urgency and optimism.
“He certainly ruffled a few feathers,” says Frank Monahan, founder and director of the Galway-based non-for-profit Architecture at the Edge and a speaker at the same session in which Daseking presented.
“I was having brunch with someone from the Chamber [of Commerce] and I could see they were taken aback because they are doing their best to present a positive image of the city. They are doing their best and are aware of the challenges,” he said.
The planning system is not fit for purpose at the moment. We need more integration and sharing with the public.
— Frank Monahan
“But if you met Prof Wulf, you would know he is saying: you have a great city, but you haven’t thought about how you plan it out in an integrated way. And he was giving an analogy. It is like that painful trip to the dentist. And this came across again and again at the conference: the mindset needs to change. It’s about the kind of communities we want to live in. There was a lot of talk about the predicted 40,000 [additional] citizens we will have by 2050. And where they will live. So increased density and compact growth.”
Monahan grew up in Barna and after 20 years in London returned to live there. He can give chapter and verse on the delights and frustrations of life in Galway. Getting around is the chief annoyance for all dwellers apart from those living in the city’s heart.
Persuading people of a future car-free Galway is like persuading a room full of teenagers of a phone-less future. It comes with instinctive reluctance. The vision, based on the transformation of cities such as Freiberg, which Daseking reconstituted as one of the greenest in Europe, is bold.
But the move towards higher-density dwellings will require an equally bold leap of faith. Ó Cuív surely has a point when he says that the Irish preference for traditional house-dwelling is instinctive.
Certainly, Daseking has given Galwegians plenty of food for thought as they sit idling in traffic. He has opened a conversation that Monahan is convinced needs to become part of the public discourse.
“A lot of our bodies are beginning to learn from the European ways rather than the Anglo-American models, which has led to this sprawl. The role of the architect has been somewhat diminished; we don’t currently have a city architect and we probably need more than one.
Monahan points to the importance of taking climate change seriously as inward migration due to conflict increase due to the climate crisis.
“You get social inequality through all of this, also. I think the academy and the recent conference can provide a template,” he said.
“The planning system is not fit for purpose at the moment. We need more integration and sharing with the public.”
