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WORK HAS BEGUN at The Liberties’ Peace Park, after years of the park being closed due to antisocial behaviour.
The park, located in Nicholas Street, Dublin across from Christchurch Cathedral, was designed as a sunken garden to reduce traffic noise at a busy junction.
The park’s old main features include a bronze ‘Tree of Life’ statue, a fountain, and features biblical and quotes from Irish poets WB Yeats and Patrick Kavanagh.
The central sunken area of the part will be raised, and some of the dense tree and shrub planting will be removed to let more light into the garden.
A number of the elements from Dublin City Council’s 2017 Silver Gilt ‘Bloom’ garden will also be used in the Peace Garden including a fountain, granite paving and solid oak benches.
The work will include the restoration of the ‘Tree of Life’ cast bronzes which were originally placed in the garden for the Millennium celebrations in 1988.
A number of suggested features in the park’s refurbishment plan have proven controversial, however.
Controversies
The first was to remove a plinth wall and railings to create an open public space.
At a recent Dublin City Council meeting, it was stated that this “generated a lot of concern with local residents” and so the plinth wall and railing will remain in place.
There is also an offer from the Government of Flanders to partner with Dublin City on a memorial to the 50,000 Irishmen who died in the Flanders fields “to bring people together in reflection about war and peace, about sacrifice and suffering, about tolerance and hope, about forgiveness and reconciliation”.
The memorial involves bringing soil collected by local children in Flanders to a landscape feature in Dublin.
It was suggested that this memorial, incorporating Irish soil, could be incorporated into the Peace Garden.
Dublin City Council’s commemorations subcommittee were briefed on this proposal at their January 2018 meeting; four members of the committee opposed the Flanders Memorial.
It had been argued previously by councillors including the former Lord Mayor Mícheál Mac Donncha and the current Lord Mayor Nial Ring, that it would be inappropriate to have a war memorial in a ‘peace’ garden or park.
In February, Mac Donncha met with representatives to discuss the Flanders Memorial; the option of placing it in the War Memorial Gardens in Islandbridge instead was explored but ultimately rejected.
In March an updated report is expected, after which a consultation will be held with local residents.
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It’s amazing how much social housing exists in Dublin City Centre. Some of the best located parts of the inner city are destroyed by drugs abuse and unemployment. That’s what clearly needs to be addressed here.
@Myles Fleming: you got a suggestion Myles? Ballymun Mkii?
@Myles Fleming: well said
@Myles Fleming: no, the passing of houses down through the family needs to be adressed!
@GerryCummins: ok so let’s not address the rampant crime and drugs in Dublin 8 area,ok.
@Myles Fleming: irony being the workers have to travel in
Be interesting to see how many billions it will end up costing in the end after the contractors come back with their new and revised prices half way through the project
The original design flaw was putting the park in a bowel like depression and surrounding it with shrubs and trees, allowed the junkies to hide in the park out of sight of the busy street. The new design is for an open plan park that merges with the street. I could only find this older proposed design, seems they revised it a bit, would be nice to see the official plans, can’t really see the graphic.
@David Jordan: bowel like depression? Sounds a bit shit…
@jamesdecay: where did you study English, as a perfect human who would never, ever misspell anything I would like to know?
@GerryCummins: Thanks Gerry. Somewhere in Ireland. Same place I got my sense of humour
How much will this run over budget?????
have your say