Una Mullally: Phoenix Park plan latest effort to erase Dublin’s character

In July 2018, the Phoenix Park in Dublin won a Gold Award at the International Large Urban Parks Awards. The other winner was the Centennial Park in Sydney, Australia. It must be doing something right. The roads and paths are well maintained, and rubbish is sparse. As the largest enclosed public park in a European capital, it provides a rare city setting for reflection, tranquillity and isolation.

The Office of Public Works’ (OPW) strategic review of the Phoenix Park has received a lot of attention in recent weeks. The first objective in the plan is to review future tourism development potential, the second is to prepare a development plan for a visitor centre, the third to prepare a development plan for the Magazine Fort. “The great value of the Phoenix Park may be that it delivers fully on the brand promise of green spaces at the edge of the city”; “Enhancing the visitor experience,” we are told, “may help to spread the economic benefits of tourism within Dublin”; “It is the ambition of the Strategic Review to create new products and a visitor proposition aligned to the Dublin brand strategy.” Dublin is not a city now, it is a brand. The things in it are “products”.

The Phoenix Park could do some things better. The restoration of the Magazine Fort is a good idea. The proposal to refurbish the ramparts to make a “circuitous rampart walk” is a good idea. Cleaning and refurbishing the Magazine Stores is a good idea. A moat walk “within the dry bed of the old ditched ravelins” is also a good idea. But there are other plans that feel designed to encroach on the things that make the park great.

Complete gimmick

The Phoenix Park doesn’t need a large visitor centre. The park is the visitor centre. The proposal for the Ashtown Demense area includes “retail concepts”, aka shops. Why on earth would you propose retail units for the park? While connecting the Magazine Fort to the Memorial Gardens at Islandbridge is an interesting idea, the proposal for a funicular railway is a complete gimmick. Funicular railways are often in situ for generations, things that existed and became attractions – not imposed flypaper for tourists. The funicular railway at Castle Hill in Budapest has been in operation since 1870. The funicular railway at Barcelona’s Montserrat was built in 1918.   But the most obnoxious proposal is to build large carparks, no matter what kind of language you shroud it in. “The resolution of the car parking issue may be contained within the methods employed by large events, such as Bloom,” the report says, “which temporarily colonises discreet parts of the park for temporary parking of cars. This transitory dynamic could be reproduced in a more permanent form with careful and well-designed car parking areas.”

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What does a “careful” carpark look like, I wonder? Building car parks or extending them within the park is regressive. We should be moving beyond a car-focused city, not tarmacing over parkland.

We should be moving beyond a car-focused city, not tarmacing over parkland

One of worst developments in recent years in the Phoenix Park has been the influx of tourists feeding deer in the park. What gets a blind eye turned to it and what gets policed? The park’s gigantic papal cross, for example, was meant to be a temporary structure and never received planning permission. In 2018, barbecues were banned in the Phoenix Park.

An attitude of enforcement, rather than facilitation, typifies how many public spaces in Dublin are run. This is an attitude that overreacts to behaviour instead of communicating the issues and negotiating a situation that works for everyone.

Holiday let

The OPW has also proposed that Rose Cottage, a lodge in the park dating from about 1800, be refurbished and used as a short-term holiday let. What can better encapsulate the attitude towards hidden gems in Dublin than a plan to do them up, but only for tourists?

Any changes to the Phoenix Park need to be planned and conducted in a holistic manner, in proper communication with the people who use the park most frequently, not those who just pop in for an hour or two on a weekend in Dublin. More broadly, this obsessive tourist-first approach to development in Dublin will, ironically, ultimately have a negative impact on tourist experiences here.

Tourists want to see a real city with real character, not a theme park built around their visit. Those living in the city are sick of feeling increasingly adrift in it.

Over the last few years, Dublin has shifted utterly towards providing for tourists and transient populations. The prioritisation of student accommodation – where nearly 80 per cent of those living in them are international students – over affordable, multifaceted housing in the city, is changing the dynamic of old neighbourhoods and communities.

Knocking down creative spots to build aparthotels squeezes the cultural enjoyment out of the city

Knocking down creative spots to build aparthotels squeezes the cultural enjoyment out of the city. Developing “co-living” as an idea for people who work in Dublin for a year or so, as opposed to those who want to make a life in the capital, is short-termism in the extreme.

Building seemingly endless hotels where there could be apartments, is creating a siloed city and ring-fencing the city centre for visitors. The overall effect is a homogeneity that is erasing Dublin’s character.

Character may not be an explicit economic marker on a spreadsheet, but it is something money can’t buy. It is invaluable. We should be creating a city that sees value beyond percentage increases in tourism and “spend”, and a place that we can all enjoy, afford and play in.