Cute Panda

This is the kind of thing I am talking about. The molly-coddling of the rural folks as if they are so more precious and their needs are greater than any other segment of Irish society. How many newlyweds in Ballymun, Neilstown etc are left a “site” by their parents to build their “dream home” on?

When was the last time a young working class couple with no money and who failed to get on a public housing list in Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Dundalk got this kinds of schmaltzy coverage on the front page of a national newspaper.

“dream home”! There are people in Ireland who would just like some kind of home…

Couple’s dream home plans wrecked
Irish Independent

Stuart and Kathryn Bloom in front of the site where they had hoped to build their dream home outside Manorhamilton.

Anita Guidera

NEWLYWEDS Stuart Bloom and Kathryn Malaniff Bloom had a simple plan.

Kathryn had grown up on the picturesque family farm outside Manorhamilton in north Leitrim.

Her parents had given her a site and her heartfelt hope was to build a home with her new husband in the rolling countryside she loves.

The couple, who got married in March, secured permission from Leitrim County Council to build a house and felt they were close enough to their dream to touch it.

But all that has changed and they may now have to move across the Border.

It was an eleventh-hour objection from An Taisce that turned their world upside down.

Speaking out yesterday, the distraught couple said that being told they were not welcome in Kathryn’s native county was hard to take.

“This is a beautiful county and it is where we want to live.

“We were granted planning permission with conditions that we were prepared to adhere to and we believe that our house would be sympathetic to the surrounding environment,” said Stuart, who works in customer care for MBNA in Carrick-on-Shannon.

In its submission, An Taisce stated that the proposed development was in an area of high natural amenity and would contravene national rural housing guidelines and Leitrim’s county development plan.

But Stuart pointed out that within 40 yards of the couple’s site was a long-established house, while a half-mile away on the same road a new house had recently been completed.

Appealing directly to An Bord Pleanala to consider their plight, Stuart said that the price of sites would leave them with no choice but to relocate to Northern Ireland, where VAT can be recouped on building costs.

“Living here would mean we would be able to bring our family up surrounded by family.”

Their story is just the latest in a growing number arising from planning decisions which have angered many Leitrim residents and prompted the county council this week to pass a vote of no confidence in An Bord Pleanala.

Manorhamilton-based Fianna Fail councillor Aodh Flynn, who claimed that heritage group An Taisce was now the sole objector to 20pc of planning applications in north Leitrim, said that denying a young couple the opportunity to build a house for themselves was “simply wrong”.

He revealed that An Bord Pleanala had recently overturned a decision by the county council for a 38-house development in the village of Rossinver eight miles away, following an objection by An Taisce.

The project had been endorsed by the council in an attempt to regenerate a dying village which has lost its post office and only pub and shop in recent years.

The development would have led to the construction of a sewage scheme and would have had the knock-on effect of increasing enrolment in the school, the reopening of the only shop and the addition of other amenities, he said.

@PDLL wrote:

outpouring of disgust with anyone who happens to live outside the Pale and who believes that the Irish language – as our national language – is a hindrance to the development of a proper public-transport network.

Nah, just a certain element of the rural mafia/professional whingers. The farming lobbies were the ones who destroyed the Spatial Stregety which would have brought real regional development to towns and cities outside the Pale. That was the rural lobbies demanding the restrictions on one off houses be all but removed and created a free for all in the countryside who did that. Not the West Brit Jackeens. This is what destroyed the tourist industry in rural Ireland – greedy farmers moving into the property development game and building the O’Southforks and O’Gracelands everywhere and destroying the views.

Do you have any idea how much public money is paid per passenger to keep these mad little airports opened around the country – most of them MILES from any real population centres. It is a national scandal but will never be dealth with as the “poor” famers need them once a year to up for Winning Streak or an IFA protest.

People in rural Ireland are way over indulged by this state and always have been since the days of mad Dev. From endless grants, to lack of planning restrictions, to Martin Cullen giving them the Western Rail Corridor for no other reason than a country priest “beseeched” him – while at the same time he is telling thousands of real commuters in Navan and Swords to make sure to put the development levies and strategic planning in place or no railway or metro for you lot.

But over in Claremorris all they have to do is ask and no conditions are placed upon the crackpot rail project trought the bogs of East Galway and Mayo for 3 trains a day of grannies on free travel passes when the current bus service on the route is already half empty. And then you have to listen to some Mayo IFA rep on TV saying “they build metros and Luas all over de place in Dublin, but we get nothing!” Before he leaves the train station (which he’ll never use even when the WRC is opened) and drives his 4×4 back home. Meanwhile 10,000s of commuters in Dunboyne, Navan and Swords are told to wait until 2015 and they might get a rail service. Cork 2008 and Limerick city, well never…. But Claremorris is being developed in to the Clapham Junction of the Irish rail network and there are little or no real commuters livng in that part of Mayo.

You think this is normal? You think this is based on actual rail transport need?

Cities outside Dublin have been as much victims of this pampering of the rural elite as Dublin. Claremorris will have five passenger rail lines leading into it post Transport21 and Limerick City does not even have a decent bus service. If pointing this out makes me an Anglo-Saxon then called me Alfred.

PS: Irish is a dead language, dead as a post. The Irish speakers gave up on it no matter how much money was sent their way to keep it alive.

@phil wrote:

What exactly do you mean by describing Dublin as not being “‘historic’ in any real sense’? One of the attractions of Dublin for many visitors is its sense of history. that ability to be able to see the remnants of different ages juxtaposed. Visitors can wander through the streets and get a sense of being in an unfolding history as oppossed to what is basically a museum like landscape such as Venice or Bruge.

I have travelled fairly extensively and Dublin to me looks about as historic as Boston. There is little of the city over 200 years old. Most of the city centre starts around 1880’s onwards when you really look at it as a whole. Apart from a few churches here and there, Dublin does not feel much more overly historic than a lot of cities in the New World and I am talking Quebec, Savannah, Havana etc. Dublin also has a huge amount of late 20th trash buildings. Claiming Dublin is mainly a visually historic city is a bit like claiming that Irish is a living and vibrant language.

I really do not see how these towers are anymore horrible than much of the 1960’s kitch which already lines the Liffey. What precisely would these towers visually ruin which has not already been ruined decades ago?

If we have beautiful historic quays lining the Liffey I could understand the negative reaction these towers are inciting, but I really don’t get why so many people are horrified by this project to the level they are – except perhaps the old Oirish fear of anything new and unique. We are hardly an innovative or dynamic culture – we are the boiled cabbage eaters, the conservative clods on the fringes of Europe wagging his finger at anything which manifest from outside the pre-determind box we are all so comfortable locking ourselves into. As Joyce said “the centre of paralysis” and all that.

I am not saying I do not respect people’s reasons for being so against the cable car idea, but I am amazed as the explosion of viceral repulsion it has unleashed on this normally well balanced forum. The same hostile reaction to this idea is no different than the residents groups and NIMBYs walking around the construction site of a 5 storey building with “NO SKYSCRAPERS HERE” scrawled on a sheet of cardboard looking and acting hysterical for no reason.

@phil wrote:

Cities like Dublin, which have been born of the river, take their essential legibility from them. This is why it is so important that the Liffey is respected. Take the Thames in London for example. The lenght of the river is dotted with various features: Canary Wharf, Tower 42, The Gherkin, St Pauls, Parliament Buildings and the London Eye (to which this cable car claims its inspiration). This is what gives it its legibility. The wanderer in the city, whether tourist or citizen, sees these features and starts to understand how the city is unfolding around them. The Placing a cable car running over the natural axis of a city (any city) would take away the visual impact which it is trying to view in the first place. This is why the London Eye works so well. It is relatively inobstusive, allows the tourist to view the city from a variety of gradually altering perspectives, but yet does not detract from the rythm of the cityscape.

I am sorry, but I honestly have no idea what you saying here. I read it a few times and all I am getting is subjective analysis. You’re rationale in the above paragraph why this would not work in Dublin borders on a form of civic theology rather than a good argument against the cable car idea. You’ll have to do better than that.

Forgive me, I am simple man and I like cable cars and I think it would be neat to take one along the Liffey. I am sure many people would like to do the same. It looks like fun. Sorry, but that is how it is, this idea actually appeals to me, and as a taxpayer won;t cost me a penny and I don’t see how the towers along the Liffey are anymore horrible than some of the junk already there.

If the towers are too high, then build taller buildings in Central Dublin rather than retreating in a Georgian Society ostichifaction state based on a shallow argument that the Dublin quays are masterpieces of civic beauty when they are in fact lined with all manner of ugly shite already.

This is just personal speculation, but perhaps there are no spiral staircases on with ends, and the cable car returns to street level or near at both ends? This is what cable cars were designed to do – steep vertical accents and decents. No reason why the cable from the most eastern tower makes a steep incline down to Spencer Dock (same at the other end)?

This to me would add to the sense of theater to the project. Think of the the way the lift at the Liffey Strorehouse enters the Gravity Bar from within the darkness and on to the roof of the city. I had taken this lift a few times and in every case there was a collective “gasp” from the tourists and they suddenly find themselves above Dublin. The same effect would be achieved by this. Being a Dubliner I would love to see the city from this.

I would life to see a scale model of the towers in relation to the city scape. Frank MacDonald is no moron and he is right behind this. Maybe he knows more about it than we do, and he has see more of the design than the one image of the tower behind the Four Courts.

I must say I am amazed at the ultra conservative reaction to this project. Dublin City centre can hardly be called “historic” in any real sense. Certainly not compared to many other European cities. We are not running this through the centre of some elegant fully in-tact baroque street scape. Has anybody had a look at the Liffey banks? It’s hardly Venice or Bruges! Look at it this way, the few historic buildngs such as the Four Courts, Customs House, Christchuch can be viewed from a whole new aspect looking down upon them from a nearby distance.

@phil wrote:

I personally like Pearse Station alot. I love its urban context, its brickwork, and its roof structure.

There are also some funny little oddities about it that I really like. For example, there is an old Cadbury’s ad (1930s?) that was hidden behind other billboards for years, which has now been exposed. There is also a great view of it from Pearse Street (at least until the empty site is built on), where you can see a door that presently leads from the station out in to thin air!

Sadly Pearse is not fully utilised. Apart from the fact that it has the potential to operate more trains by upgrading its unused bays, there is scope for an imaginative overhaul. The area next to the main platform I always thought would make a wonderful cafe.

Harcourt Street is my favourite. I think it is a beautiful building. Heuston’s facade is too camp and overworked. There is a simple elegance and strenght in the design of Harcourt Street. Same for Broadstone too.

I am also in favour of Broadstone becoming Dublin main inter-city bus terminal to replace tiny Busaras when Luas puts is back on the rail network in 2012.

Personally I don’t think that Ballymun “failed” anymore that miserible suburbs in Cork and Dundalk failed in their own way. Ballymun just got far less attention (in fact none) from the Government, but the whole Irish concept of hatred towards urban living (“destroy it at all costs”) is the same reason why Ballymun failed as Limerick City failed – a Government and Civil Service made up of rosary bead mauling farmers sons and daughters who are hostile to anyting but rural/farming development.

This is same reason why a crackpot ideas like the Western Rail Corridor gets as much attention (if not more) as the Dublin Metro and why Claremorris will have more rail lines leading into it post Transport21 than Dublin, or have more rail services to that country hamlet than the cities of Cork, Limerick and Galway. Simply because a rural preist has demanded it so – and this is what matter. The prioritisation of the WRC in Transport21 proves that the argi-elite still have incredible power in this country and if the WRC was in any other country it would be laughed at.

There is an underlying hostility towards urban life in Ireland and likewise a cherishing of rural values and it stems from the Dev years. Look at the factory which went up in smoke in Longford and the molly-coddling the workforce got simply because of the connection to farming. If the same thing happens in Ballymun (if there was a factory there to begin with) no hotel would be booked by the social welfare people to hold the employees hands and constant RTE reports as if it was the greatest disaster ever to hit mankind.

My family moved in to Thomas Clarke Tower in 1970. I know a lot of people may not beleive this, but for many of the early residents moving to Ballymun was like going to heaven in the early days. People had tremedous pride and felt so positive about living there. We lived there for a few years and then to a larger flat on Shangan Avenue.

I can tell you for a fact why Ballymun “failed”:

1) Refugee Camp Mentality – Like Tallaght and Neilstown about a decade later, working class Dubliners were considered vermin by the rural ethos of this Irish state. Working class Dubliner were to be removed from the vista of the gaelic aspirations of the Irish state filled with its rural TDs and Civil Servants who created “housing schemes” and more or less ethnically cleansed traditional Dublin working class neighbourhoods in the city centre and deported them en-masse to Ballymun. Once there they were left to rot and neglected.

If you were from Ballymun Flats and had an issue pretaining to anything you needed repaired in the Flats chances are you encoutered some roasary bead mauling biddy from Mayo in the Corpo on Jervis Street who treated you as if you were honoured to have her even look sneeingly at you.

2) Abandondment – Once in Ballymun we were expected to fend for ourselves. While the Government ploughed vast sums into GAA clubs and Farmers Co-ops from Donegal to Kerry, the same did not apply to people in Ballymun (or any part of urban Ireland for that matter). We did not fit the image of the barefoot maidens dancing at the crossroads and represented a uncomfortable reminder that Ireland was hardly the mono-cultural farming fantasyland the guardians of the state whished it to be.

3) Decay – If you are not going to develop a community then you are hardly going to fix it up when it starts falling apart. (I mean this in every sense, social and economic)

4) Bad timing. Ballymun gets built…arab oil crises leading to massive ecnomic downturn…heroin shows up. One mess after the next.

5) The Oirish problem with buildings over 4 stories. “Ye don’t see them yokes in Mayo, so deas must be bad news!” – this still prevails. But not as bad as it used to be.

6) Tallaght and Neilstown – The community in Ballymun collasped when most of them moved enmasse to West Dublin in the early to mid 1980’s in most cases to much worse circumstances. Even they believe that a coal fire in a freezing house in the middle of nowhere was better than 24×7 free hot water and central heating in Ballymun Flat for no other reason that “it’s a house”.

7) No jobs in Ballymun and terrible public transport led to a situation were the ones who were left isolated and unable to get back into life. Middle class orgaisations such as the Labour Party and SIPTU never expressed an interest in the people of Ballymun. The Trade Unions members were too busy having the name of their street changed from Ballymun Ave to “Glasnevin Ave”. This is why people in Ballymun have always rejected the so called working class lobbies such as the Trade Unions and the Labour Party as we saw them for the phonies they were.

Now having said all this, Ireland is a much better country now and is a much more mature society. Ballymun is for all it faults has a place of fantastic community spirit which unless you have come face to face with it – is hard for an outsider to believe. It really is something eles how people in Ballymun look after each other. The hatred of working class Dubliners is no longer an agenda of the Irish Government and civil service – and the Ballymun Regeneration Project proves this.

To sum up, I think that Ballymun “failed” in an Irish social sense because it was perhaps too modern for the Dev’s Holy Catholic Rural Ireland and it created a negative reaction to the Irish, who think people can only live in bungalows on an acre of land. I think if Ballymun was built today, it would have got a lot more TLC from Irish Government and society as a whole. A freind of mine who stills lives there once summed it up beautifully. “If we want to make the rest of Ireland respect and cherish Ballymun then paint the flats white and tatch the roof of the towers”.

Ireland was not ready for the Ballymun Flats when they were first built.

Hi Patty, you’ll get answers to all of the above here:

http://platform11.hyperboards3.com/index.cgi

and here:

http://www.platform11.org

@kefu wrote:

Glenmalure Park is a housing estate. Shamrock Rovers are on the verge of bankruptcy. Dalymount Park is a rusting concrete antique. Tolka Park is being sold for housing. Galway United have just hired a fraudster to be their commerical manager. They drove Roy Keane out of the World Cup.

Glenmalure Park was sold by the family who owned it and not the FAI. Tolka Park is being sold as apartments to build a new stadium in Baldoyle. Flancare Park and Turners X blow every GAA ground with the exception of Croker out of the water. Athlone, Limerick, Finn Harps are all in the process of building new stadiums.

Here is a picture of the Dalymount which it to be completed at an all seater next year with corporate boxes etc.
http://www.stadiumguide.com/dalymount1.jpg

http://www.mayonews.ie/current/county.tmpl$showpage?value1=33229077752570

De Facto – Mayo News, Wednesday April 20, 2005
Planning a withdrawal

Why did Westport Town Council allow a respected developer to submit a major planning application that, according to Westport Civic Trust, contravenes the Westport Town Development Plan 2003, Departmental Residential Density-Guidelines and Part 5, Planning and Development Act 2000? Both the council and the developer and their respective advisors held a series of pre-planning meetings, yet the application has now been withdrawn. The application refers to a major development at Cloonmonad (alongside the Railway Line Walk) of over 100 houses.
Westport Civic Trust (WCT) has done the people of the town a great favour with their submission, prepared by Gerrard+Associates. (Declaration of interest – I am a founder member of WCT and only examined the submission after it was submitted to the council.) The objection was brave as people call for more houses in Westport. It raised serious issues about the pre-planning process. Six other submissions were made.

Planning history

The planning application was received and validated by Westport Town Council on March 4th. It was not available to the public until March 11th – reducing the time-span for submissions by 20%. Requests by WCT for the file were denied during that first week. A WCT member walked the site with a senior council official, finding only one of the three site notices. At one stage the official ‘erected’ one of the (fallen) notices.

In a letter dated April 7th the developer notified the council that the application was being withdrawn. The council received the letter on the same day. On the same day letters were sent to the seven parties who had made submissions advising them that the application had been withdrawn.

People who asked to see the file last week in the council offices were informed that the application had been withdrawn. The implication was that this did not give people the right to view the file. Some of us insisted, regardless. Pre-planning details were presented on one A4 page (with €1 charge for a copy!) A pre-planning file with details of several meetings was not made available.

The Civic Trust submission highlighted four main points:

1. Westport Development Plan

The submission showed that there was only temporary access to the site across the Railway Line Walk, which is a public amenity.

“The proposal does not minimise the potential growth in transport demand, it does not promote and facilitate cycling, walking and public transport. It does not provide viable alternatives to car based transport.”

Another objector stated that the density of the proposal was double what was proposed in the development plan (which allows for increased density in some cases). Concerns were also expressed under sustainability, waste disposal and design headings. A public park was included “in accordance with Westport Town Council’s masterplan for Cloonmonad, prepared by Mitchell+Associates.” This ‘masterplan’ has no legal standing, is not cited in the Development Plan, has not been put on public display and was not available for viewing to Gerrard+Associates. The council plans to build a new access road to the estate but nothing has been finalised. Why allow a developer to proceed with plans when the road details are not finalised.

2. Housing strategy 2001-2006

There is a county policy to develop 20% of residential zoned land for social and affordable housing under Part V of the Planning and Development Act, 2000 and to encourage integration of social and affordable housing within developments. The Act allows planning authorities to issue certificates exempting developments from the social housing requirements. No clearance certificate has been applied for.

There is no reference in the planning application as to how the housing strategy policy is to be complied with. It is a requirement of the Act to do so, and failure to comply renders the application invalid.

3. Environmental impacts

Neither a Heritage Plan nor a Biodiversity Plan (as required under the National Biodiversity Plan) is in place in Westport. No proper assessment of the wetlands of Cloonmonad, an urban greenway, which will be impacted by the proposed access to the development, has been made. Senior road engineer Paddy Mahon in his memo to the Manager dated 6th September 2001 stated: “With regard to the flora and fauna of the wetlands in the vicinity of the Railway Walk an Environmental Impact Assessment can be carried out. This assessment would identify the impact the proposed road and bridge would have on the environment generally, and would make recommendations on how to minimise any impact.” No EIS was carried out. Once this greenway is destroyed it cannot be reinstated.

4. New road

Town councillors passed plans (Part 10, newspaper notice, 4th July 2001) for a new 1 km road and a bridge over the Railway Walk to the development site. Upwards of 150 people made submissions on this proposal. Their concerns were neither considered nor acknowledged by Westport Town Council and became the subject of a complaint to the Ombudsman, who ruled against the council. Has this decision been brought to the attention of councillors in a public meeting yet?

The council’s consultants Mitchell+Associates commented on the Railway Walk in 2002: “The main visual impact on the walkway however, will be the insertion of an access road to the north of the alignment, which will service the still underdeveloped lands at Cloonmonad. The visual impact of the proposed road on the amenity of the walkway will be significant.”

The WCT submission also included details from a traffic study showing no local public transport services to the Cloonmonad/Quay area. “All this points to a need for a Greenway to include a cycle path and pedestrian walk along the Railway Walk as recognised by the Westport Town Development Plan 2003 … However this objective is in jeopardy if the Part 8 Road project is allowed to proceed as a service road for the subject site.”

Pre-planning is a disservice to any developer if the subsequent validated planning application contravenes the law. WCT highlighted serious flaws in pre-planning. The real victims are the people waiting for houses.