Dargan Hub’s submission to Dún Laoghaire Harbour Master Plan
The Dargan Institute made the following submission to the Dun Laoghaire Harbour Masterplan -
1. A building on the scale and vision of the dlr LexIcon is needed where the Ferry Terminal is now if our town is to become one of Europe's top coastal towns.
The current communications about the Ferry Terminal within the overall possible plan suffers from mixed messages. On the one hand the plan asks for ambitious plans for that location in 13 years when the tenant has to hand back the building while at the same time the tenant of the Ferry Terminal, Quarterdeck, may be thinking how can they extract compensation in the next couple of years for surrendering the site which they currently appear to have no interest in developing.
2. Movement and Connectivity - A mechanism to hard wire collaboration between the main street and the harbour is needed. A number of years ago I visited Valencia Harbour when I was CEO of Startup Ireland on a fact finding visit, they had successfully repurposed the buildings from hosting the 2007 Americas Cup to startup hubs. Perhaps there is an opportunity to colocate an incubation centre for companies that are in the Green and Digital sector, this theme could then be carried over into the narrative for our town as a leading European centre for supporting society's green and digital transition.
3. We wrote a report for Heritage Week 2023 entitled "5 Heritage-led Vision Projects to put Dún Laoghaire town centre on the world cruise map". One of the proposals was for a Dún Laoghaire Industrial Revolution and Transport museum at the original 1840s Kingstown station which is currently roofless. Dún Laoghaire is an exciting town full of history, which this museum aims to highlight. In 1834 William Dargan opened the country's first railway line to the town, making it the starting point for Ireland’s railway network and putting it on the map of industrial advancements in Ireland.
The opening of this railway serviced the newly built harbour and meant that the town was a centre for industrial advancement in the country and the proposed museum will highlight the town's national and international contributions to industry and science as it can claim a number of national and world firsts as it had -
The largest asylum harbour in the world for 50 years, an extraordinary achievement of civil engineering.
The first railway in Ireland and possibly the first suburban railway in the world.
The first vacuum powered railway in the world from Kingstown to Dalkey
Such a museum could become the first stop on Ireland's Ancient East.
4. Harbour Road Dùn Laoghaire runs through where it is believed the fort of Irish High King Laoghaire was located. Laoghaire’s fort is believed to originate from circa 450 AD; the ‘King Laoghaire Monument’ (erected 1998) is located on its original site. The remains of the fort were damaged when the Martello Tower was built on the site in the nineteenth century, and the last remnants of the ‘dún’ were destroyed during the building of the railway in 1833–34.
As part of an ambitious repositioning of Dún Laoghaire as a stand out European coastal town there is an opportunity to reflect this ancient heritage in some way thereby increasing the town's claim to be a starting point for the 'Ireland's Ancient East' route.
5. The Harbour and Ulysses by James Joyce - The book Ulysses opens with a scene set on the southern shores adjoining the harbour, Sandycove Martello Tower. What is little known is that the final phases of the book, the Eumaeus episode, contains a scene set in the Cabman's shelter near Talbot Street where sailor W.B.Murphy talks about his home in The Gut, Kingstown Harbour. There may be an opportunity to highlight this link in the area around The Gut thereby deepening the offering to visitors who are attracted for Joyce's Tower.
