Looking after the open spaces

The sun slants across the park on a bright, cold November day. Martina Gormley scans the work that has been carried out since her last visit. She takes note of the trees, the hedges, the lawns, the borders and the pathways. She walks on. Any deviation from the plan is noted. Any problems are jotted down.

Her job as a parks superintendent with Dun Laoghaire/Rathdown Co Council involves drawing up and implementing designs for a range of public open spaces, including parks, sports amenities and facilities and also current work on the Southern Cross Motorway and the South-Eastern Motorway. She is also working on the restoration of the walled garden and the period house in Marley Park, both of which date back to the Georgian period between 1764 and 1837.

This is one of the most challenging and exciting projects at the moment, says Gormley, her eyes lighting up with enthusiasm. "Two of us are working on the research and design of the walled garden. Our job primarily is to get all the relevant material together and to have it look as authentic as possible. It's very interesting.

"I spoke to members of the La Touche family who lived there over 100 years ago and also the Love family who lived in the house until 1973. They were able to give us photographs. It will be restored to Georgian/Regency period."

She is uncovering further details by reading through old documents at the National Library and the National Archive in order to discover the horticultural background of Marley House.

Gormley is one of a team of 10 parks superintendents with the council. "We are project-based rather than area-based," she says. Her job title "comes from way back - it's an old traditional name." The European equivalent would be a landscape architect.

"You don't spend all the time outdoors," says Gormley. "The project will dictate how much time you need to spend outside. Generally, you'll do a lot of the design inside." The parks department has 2,500 acres under its wing.

Her interest in this work goes back to her father, Eamon Gormley, she explains. "He used to take me with him when he travelled to different farms . . . he was an agricultural officer with the Department of Agriculture. He used to inspect crops. I'd to go with him during my summer holidays - I'd walk the drills with him sometimes. He was definitely the inspiration behind my decision to do this work. That's where it started. It's in the blood."

Her first job was with Tipperary North Riding Co Council - she was responsible for urban and village renewal projects, such as those at Toomevara and Killoscully. There old Mass paths were incorporated into the design. "There were nine different projects - I was responsible for seven. I started work the day after graduation."

After finishing second-level at the Holy Faith De La Salle College in Skerries, Co Dublin, Gormley was offered a place on the B Ag science in landscape horticulture at UCD. She deferred for a year and did a Teagasc certificate in amenity horticulture at the National Botanic Gardens in Glasnevin, Dublin. "I found that a great help," she says. "It's very hard to know what way to go and that gave me an idea of what the work involved."

She carried on to UCD then and began her studies in agricultural science. "After two years at UCD, you decide what area you want to go into. There's a wide choice, including forestry, agricultural engineering, environmental science, commercial horticulture, animal science." There were 11 in the group when Gormley graduated. "It's very good because the class is so small."

She found some of the subjects quite broad. "You spend a lot of time doing design. It's very time consuming but I realised when I went to Tipperary how important it was. You can't have too much design. It helps if you enjoy learning how to draw and if you enjoy the design aspect but drawing is not a requirement."

As part of her studies at UCD she went to Wageningen University in the Netherlands for three months. Then she went to the Szarvasi Aboretum in Hungary for three months. "I'd strongly recommend students to get experience abroad. You can see what other countries are at. I found the design in Holland to be very functional - a lot of planning would be in straight lines.

"In Ireland, although design would be very individual, in general we would be functional. We try to encompass as much nature as possible. Here you see nice curves. Theirs are very rigid."