Eyre Square – What’s going on?

I totally disagree the old Eyre Square was great and was designed for the JFK visit in 1963]

There was nothing great about the old Eyre Square. It’s “Design” consisted of a few low walls, a grotty concrete paved area, lots of inapproprate parking areas, dire and stunted planting and randomly strewn objects such as the Padraic O’Connaire statue and the Kennedy memorial. It’s one, rough and ready diagonal pathway was intersected by a number of mucky tracks created by people wanting to go in other ways across the green area.

What’s there now isn’t perfect by any means, I could think of dozens of issues that could have and should have been resolved in better ways. However it’s infinitely better than what was there before in terms of being a usable, active space with properly defined routes and areas of focus. the lighting is excellent, the whole square being lit in pure white with some interesting and subtle color changing features and the sails fountain should be spectacular when switched on at the grand opening.

Overall it’s a great improvement to the heart of Galway and it’s good to have the place back! Obviously going by how intensively used the place has been over the past few weeks the people of Galway and the Tourists are pretty happy with the result also. Unfortunately there are already a few problems – litter and inadequate bins being the most pressing, but also skateboarders causing damage to the stonework and intimidating other users of the space. THere is talk of a full time attendant/caretaker for the square which I believe would be an excellent idea.