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A “VOLTE FACE” from the government is to thank for Dublin’s Temple Bar being the place it is today and not a bus station.
The area between Fownes Street and Eustace Street was pegged for a massive Dublin bus station, with a complimentary site on the northside earmarked for Abbey Street between the quays, Liffey Street and Jervis Street.
It would also feature an underground rail tunnel from Heuston Station to Connolly, with stations on either side of the Liffey.
The plan would have made Temple Bar a radically different place, even leaving it without the titular pub.
The plan had been around since the 1970s, with CIE buying up property in the area with the view of building the stations, which would be linked by a tunnel which was slated to run under the Liffey.
In 1977, architecture firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill came up with this design, but delays in financing led CIE to rent out the properrties, largely at nominally rents.
This led to artists and creatives renting spaces and turning the area into a de facto cultural quarter for the area during the 80s, which included the Hirschfield Centre, an openly gay community centre.
Dublin culture blog Come Here To Me quotes journalist Frank McDonald as being vociferously against the plan, writing in 1986:
“[A]ll of this looks like so much pie-in-the-sky. In the first instance, the commercial property market in Dublin is in a state of almost total collapse, with the demand for new office space, not to mention shopping and residential- down to not much more than zero. And secondly, the linchpin of CIE’s scheme – the underground central station for DART – is looking more and more like a pipe-dream.”
Despite the local resistance to the plan, Garrett Fitzgerald’s government took steps to commission a feasibility study on the plan.
Towards the end of 1986 a company called Caneire Investments was contracted to look at the plan and advise on consultancy firms. However, early in 1987 on 7 January, Caneire’s William Halman wrote to the Taoiseach’s department angered at what he felt was a change in the scope and timescale of the proposed assessment study. Halman was responding to a lengthy telex from Government Buildings.
“I am staggered and dismayed with the duplicity displayed by the content of your telex, which when read in conjunction with all of your communications between us since our meetings at the Department of the Taoiseach on 24 – 25 November 1986 leave us sceptical as to the government’s intent.
“Caneire agreed to a study to be undertaken on certain terms. Your latest proposal is a study on different terms with elements reintroduced which were previously proposed by you and rejected by Caneire.
“I remain unable to make an appropriate or adequate response to this volte face, which is a reversal to the former negative position in which Caneire found itself prior to November 24-25.”
Halman would follow that up with another letter saying the company “cannot accept” the study as proposed and seeking agreement on moving forward.
But a general election called the following week would see the disagreement moot.
A letter would be issued from the Taoiseach’s department two weeks later which said that while terms of reference could be agreed, the commission of the study would “be more appropriate” for whomever won the subsequent election.
When that turned out to be Fianna Fáil, Charles Haughey set about revamping the area, offering what one developer called “very special tax incentives”. A Dublin City Council vote saw the plan rejected and a massive bus station in the heart of Dublin was dead in the water.
Haughey would bullishly claim that he “wouldn’t let CIE near the place”. In the summer of 1991, the Dáil passed the Temple Bar Renewal and Development Bill which created two state companies, Temple Bar Properties Ltd and Temple Bar Renewal Ltd which were established to oversee the regeneration of the entire area.
CIE would be paid just under £4 million for its properties in the area.
EU funding would lead to the re-cobbling of the streets and pedestrianisation of the area and the bustling tourism destination we see today was born.
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Think I would have preferred the bus station!
That’s all very well, but we still need a provincial bus station that isn’t a godforsaken, overcrowded helhole where buses double-park outside during the evening rush (they used to triple-park until the Luas stop got in the way) , the underground toilets are downright scary and many routes have had their Dublin terminus banished to stops on the quays that don’t even have shelters.
@Neal Ireland Hello.: spot on Neil
Instead, we got an overpriced kip, that cheats tourists out of their money. Located in an area similar to Ibiza after 12am.
@Stuart Dickens:
I understand 12 midday and 12 midnight. Please explain what is 12am.
@Donal Hanley: 12am is the same as 12pm, ambiguous as hell! When I worked security, we were trained to record 12 midnight as either 1159 on (say) Tuesday , or 1201 on Wednesday.
@Grotmaster:
Sorry Grotmaster. There is nothing ambiguous about midday and midnight. They are very precise. As to your checking in to work, that may have been due to a computer programme.
@Donal Hanley: 12:00 am is midnight :)
Its the pimple on the face of Dublin. Over priced and filthy. I stay well clear of it when im in town.
@RobbieL: maybe I am cynical but perhaps a large brown envelope exchanged hands for this to become a tourist trap instead of a bus station? Is it traditional to exchange such gifts to needy developers bearing in mind the Godawful architectural crimes on the skyline of Dublin in the recent past? Perhaps I am getting a bit paranoid?
All I’m reading is that the government failed to implement another public transportation scheme…. Pretty much the usual outcome. Who needs public infrastructure that meets demand anyways?
Probably better than an overpriced tourist trap where hardly any Dubs frequent
Temple Bar is a great source of income to the state and it contains the problem of drunken tourists in one small area making it easier to police and easier to avoid.
@Brian O Reilly: its a dump
It’s not. In the 80s it was a dump. Weeds growing out of chimneys on the point of collapsing into the streets. Squatters and glue-sniffers. A law was brought in to either repair your neglected building or sell it. Then it was transformed into a lively, clean area with good affordable restaurants and a historical trail. The EU funded part of that. It was fun to visit. But after that, the boom hit parts of Ireland, and the first million Euro apartments went in there. And it’s anyone’s guess why there is still no investment in an underground rail tunnel.
Rip off KIP.
We give out about bureacracy and the time it takes to get planning in ireland but maybe this saved dublin from turning into an eastern bloc city full of concrete. However the irish countryside has been pock marked with many ugly houses and warehouses that should have been built in industrial areas of towns and cities like most other countries.
The cheapest bus fare would have been a tenner, and late night fares would have cost fifteen euro.
Temple bar is just a large outdoor urinal and a vomit pit id have prefered a bus station
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