On most weekdays I make the 3km walk from the northeast inner Dublin suburb of Marino to the office on Tara Street, just south of the Liffey. I feel grateful to be able to live so near to the city centre but the route also offers a snapshot of some of the issues explored in the current Derelict Dublin series in The Irish Times.
My walk takes me across several concentric rings of Dublin’s history, from a 1920s housing estate through a tree-lined park, over the Tolka river and the Royal Canal, past the largely Victorian buildings of North Strand and Amiens Street, on to Connolly Station, Busáras and the Custom House, then finally across the unlovely Talbot Memorial Bridge to the less interesting side of the river.
It’s a historically layered urban landscape, encompassing Georgian landmarks, 19th century terraces, churches, schools, pubs and shops, mid-20th century social housing and post-Celtic Tiger apartments. At the Five Lamps crossroads, high walls surround Aldborough House, one of the city’s more shameful examples of dereliction. Another, the City Arts Centre on the corner of Moss Street, greets me as I cross the river.
Derelict Dublin: Why are there so many rotting buildings in the capital?
Away from the commuter rush of Amiens Street, the place feels underpopulated, ill-cared for and sometimes unsafe after dark
While these streets are dowdy and often down at heel, they’re far from the urban hellscape conjured up by some reports of the problems of the inner city. As you get closer to the centre, the area’s social challenges – addiction, poverty, urban decay – become more obvious. For the most part, though, people just go about their daily business without much fuss. But, away from the commuter rush of Amiens Street, the place feels underpopulated, ill-cared for and sometimes unsafe after dark. It certainly doesn’t look like the centre of the capital of what is allegedly one of the wealthiest countries in Europe.
Plastic bin bags spill their guts across stained concrete. Buddleia sprouts from roofs and chimney stacks. Shopfronts are shuttered for years, sometimes decades. Many buildings appear only partially in use, with upper floors vacant.
Whatever about the neglect, that sense of under-use can be misleading. According to the Central Statistics Office, this is one of the most densely populated parts of the country. That should be expected of any historic urban core in comparison to its surrounding suburbs. It’s also home to a more transient population. Gross overcrowding sits cheek by jowl with shameful dereliction and land hoarding.
Linking the existing off-road Howth to Clontarf cycleway with the city centre, it’s a hefty piece of engineering that took 2½ years to build and cost almost €71m
Urban neglect in Dublin is a joint private-public enterprise. But some genuine improvements are being made. My route has been transformed by the recently completed Clontarf to City Centre Cycleway (C2CC). The C2CC, as nobody except Dublin City Council calls it, was opened with hurried fanfare the day before the general election by ministers Eamon Ryan and Paschal Donohoe. Linking the existing off-road Howth to Clontarf cycleway with the city centre, it’s a hefty piece of engineering that took 2½ years to build and cost almost €71 million.
If that sounds like a lot for a 2.7km bike lane, the finished project, almost two decades in the planning, includes significant water mains work (some of which delayed completion by six months, to the frustration of local businesses). The entire stretch has also been resurfaced completely, with redesigned bus lanes and new pedestrian crossings. Narrow, racked footpaths have been replaced with wider, handsome paving, new planting and benches. Enhanced junction design means cars must now give way to pedestrians. On what used to be a traffic-choked artery, the balance has tilted decisively towards buses, bikes and walking.
Improvements like these to the urban fabric won’t fix Dublin’s complicated dereliction problems but they form one part of the solution. Creating an attractive and easily navigable urban realm has been a task at which successive generations of Dublin city officials, along with their masters in central Government, have conspicuously failed. You can see this most clearly where shiny new projects like the Luas rub up against the crumbling streetscapes of places like the eastern end of Parnell Street.
A Dart station without a dedicated street-level entrance forces you to enter circuitously via the main train concourse
A new example is where the cycleway comes to an abrupt end outside the grubby but still handsome Italianate facade of Connolly Station. Here is the busiest public transport intersection in the State, with Dart, Luas, commuter and intercity rail, regional and city bus services all converging within 100m of each other in one gigantic design fiasco.
A Dart station without a dedicated street-level entrance forces you to enter circuitously via the main train concourse. Busáras has its back turned to the Luas stop which bears its name. Dublin Bus passengers are crammed dangerously on to too-narrow footpaths. Everything is grimy, shabby and dispiriting. It’s in places like these that Dublin feels like a city designed by people who despise its inhabitants.
Disrespect for the urban environment has been a feature, not a bug, of public policy in Ireland since the foundation of this State. You can see the consequences not just in Dublin but in every city countrywide: over-deference to motorists; tolerance for neglect and dereliction; indifference to aesthetics; and incoherent design.
That antipathy has found new expression in some of the commentary around the condition of our north city centre, which is almost always framed as an intractable series of problems.
It is, in its way, quite beautiful. Its idiosyncratic hotch-potch of architectural eras and styles has a humanity and variety you won’t find in any modern development
But the place I walk through every day is also full of opportunity and life. It is, in its way, quite beautiful. Its idiosyncratic hotch-potch of architectural eras and styles has a humanity and variety you won’t find in any modern development. Its terrain is bisected by canals and rivers, bridges and tunnels, which give it the sort of post-industrial character that in other cities has sparked urban regeneration. There are multiple opportunities here to build new recreational facilities, start modest businesses and design imaginative small infill developments.
That would be entirely in keeping with the long-term policies of this and previous governments on climate action, infrastructure and housing. All that’s required is a bit of vision, a modest level of competence and some joined-up thinking.
I know, it’ll never happen.
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