Capital job suited man who bestrode city like a colossus

IF ANYONE could be said to have "run" Dublin over the past 16 years, it is Frank Feely. City councillors come and go, and may pretend they have a major role, but the real power resides with the city manager. The state of the city is his responsibility.

This was dramatically underlined during President Clinton's visit. Mr Feely, in his robes of office, was on the podium in College Green. The elected representatives of the Dublin people, other than the Lord Mayor, were squeezed behind crash barriers on the street.

Indeed, foreign visitors were often left with the impression that Mr Feely was the real Lord Mayor. Avuncular and gregarious, his appetite for attending functions was legendary; he became "Mr Dublin

Six feet three inches tall, he once explained that he acquired his stoop from having to "talk down" to so many people. And although the Sunday Press described him as the man who "bestrides the city like a colossus", he was remarkably thin-skinned when it came to negative publicity.

Mr Feely so identified with Dublin and the corporation that he interpreted criticism of the city, or its administration, as criticism of himself. To counteract it, he often referred to complimentary letters from ordinary citizens and visitors.

Steeped in the culture of Dublin Corporation (he had served in its ranks since he left school in 1949), it is hardly surprising Mr Feely would seek to defend what has been his life's work - even if this meant refusing to acknowledge publicly the city's serious problems.

Thus, his response to critical articles in the early 1980s documenting decay and dereliction was the "I Iove Dublin" campaign. It was followed by annual street carnivals and, ultimately, the 1988 Millennium celebrations which had a huge impact in making Dubliners more aware of their city.

At the same time, Mr Feely was deaf to protests, even from the Liberties, against the corporation's road schemes. Indeed, at the height of this controversy, he said he knew why Patrick Street needed to be widened because his car stalled there every morning.

He also championed the road engineers and their plans for the controversial Eastern Bypass motorway, linking Whitehall with Booterstown via Sandymount Strand - shelved for the moment - and the equally contentious Inner Tangent ring around the city centre, now largely abandoned.

Although he acknowledged the Temple Bar area had become a bohemian haven for young people in the mid-1980s, he was content to support CIE's plans to demolish the core of it for a bus station - at least until this project was dropped, following a long and intensive campaign.

In 1979, after the election of a new City Council committed to protecting Wood Quay, he played a key role in saving the Civic Offices project as finance officer and acting city manager when he warned the councillors that they could all be personally surcharged if the voted to drop the scheme.

He had little sympathy for historic buildings, from Carson's birthplace to St Catherine's Church. When asked about Dublin's conservation record, he would point out that, of the 18 major public buildings featured in Malton's prints from the 1790s, no fewer than 16 remain.

Frank Feely preferred to dwell on Dublin Corporation's achievements - the inner-city housing schemes, the pedestrianisation of Grafton Street and other areas, the pocket parks and the floodlighting of landmarks such as the Ha'penny Bridge.

He was among the first to suggest a scheme of tax incentives for the renewal of rundown areas, such as the Liffey quays. And although the corporation once derided those who called for inner-city apartments rather than office blocks, it has sought credit for the recent residential boom.

The corporation was deeply unsympathetic to any measure which eroded its status, such as Temple Bar Properties, the briefly reigning Metropolitan Streets Commission or proposals to set up an inner-city renewal authority.

Because it is rigidly organised on functional lines, each department seems to pursue its own agenda. The city manager's main role is to draw them together in the context of a shared vision of the city. But can this essential vision be provided by anyone who has spent his working life in such a bureaucratic environment?

It is a fundamental question which the interview panel selecting Frank Feely's successor must face.