Pop-up park project raises almost €22,000 through Irish crowdfunding site

Voluntary arts collective UpStart will this week transform a vacant Dublin inner city site into a pop-up park and urban sanctuary which will be officially opened on Thursday evening.

The group raised almost €22,000 from 577 people on Irish crowdfunding site Fundit, which will go toward creating the pop-up park on Lower Dominick Street.

The park will play host to a variety of exhibitions, installations, events and community activities along with a theatre built from wooden pallets by a cross-Border reconciliation group, an educational space, a children’s play area and an outdoor cinema.

"This is an opportunity to transform something ugly and grey into something colourful and beautiful which will inspire creativity and change," says UpStart founder Sam Bishop.

He said the legacy of the park will be a freely available roadmap and toolkit, so projects such as this can be organised by other groups in other parts of the country.

Meanwhile, Junior Chamber International (JCI) Dublin will host a start-up weekend in Google HQ this Saturday and Sunday for young professionals.

The two-day event aims to give aspiring entrepreneurs the chance to discover the essential skills needed to start a company.