If the project team for the Ballymun Arts and Community Resource Centre is right, the demolition of MacDonagh Tower in Ballymun may coincide with the green shoot of growth right beside it - the building of a new centre. Minister de Valera went out to the site last week, met community leaders and saw a model of the new building. Although £1.8 million of the over £5 million budget for the new centre has yet to be found, the project team chairman, Sean Cooke, is confident that the largest community-led building project ever in Ireland will begin in April.
Ballymun was allocated £2.1 million in EU urban funding and the original plan was to refurbish a church dating from 1848 as a cultural centre. However, extensive public consultation revealed that building from scratch was a more favoured option - the church might have been a difficult space to work with, was near a needle exchange facility, and there was, says Cooke, "a strong traditional sense" that it should be used again as a church. The centre will have a 200-seat theatre, another, smaller studio performance space, conference facilities, a dance studio, training and workshop rooms and up to 18 offices for different community groups.
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