Dublin Uncovered: Dundrum A closer look at Dublin’s neighbourhoods Inner-city resident Leopold Bloom, the hero of James Joyce’s Ulysses, dreams of moving out to leafy suburbia. He has his eye on Dundrum, south of the city, where he imagines living in a bungalow called “Flowerville” or perhaps “Bloom Cottage”. Over a century later, Dundrum remains an attractive place to live. If you’re coming from the city by road, the first you might see of Dundrum is its magnificent Santiago Calatrava-designed bridge. The bridge carries the Luas tram line over the busy Taney Road junction and is named for William Dargan, the pioneer of Irish railways. Dargan lived nearby, in Goatstown, where Queen Vi Read More
Dublin Treasures – Malahide Castle The people, places and things that make Dublin special. Set on 260 acres of parkland in the seaside town of Malahide, 16 km north of Dublin, Malahide Castle was home to the Talbot family from 1185 to 1975. The atmospheric castle – yes, there are ghosts – is furnished with period furniture and a large collection of Irish portraiture on loan from the National Gallery. Four main rooms are open to the public: the wood-panelled Oak room, the Small and Great Drawing Rooms and the Great Hall, where an exhibition records the history of the family who lived at the castle for almost 800 years. Read More
Croke Park: From Hill 60 to Hill 16 Croke Park. It’s not just a stadium. As Tim Carey, author of Croke Park: A History says, ‘More than perhaps any other sporting venue, Croke Park represents something that is beyond sport’. The place has always had another agenda – one that’s intimately connected with the birth and evolution of a nation. ‘It is freighted with historical significance’, says Carey, ‘from the naming of the stands after various figures associated with the GAA to the momentous historical event of Bloody Sunday. Perhaps no other stadium in the worl Read More
Taking trucks off Dublin’s streets Traffic: we all hate it. But we’re stuck with – and in – it. Or are we? A new initiative from Dublin City Council (DCC) and delivery firm UPS is aiming to reduce the number of vehicles on the city’s roads. It uses what UPS call an “Eco Hub” container on Wolfe Tone Street. The Eco Hub acts as a small distribution hub from which deliveries can be made by bike or on foot. “It came about when we were approached by UPS, who had piloted the same project in London, Paris and Hamburg,” explains Colm Ennis, Senior Executive Engineer with DCC. “We are developing a strategy for city centre goods deliveries and are trying to reduce Read More
GROWN GROWN is a tiny Dublin company that prints beautiful simple designs on ethically-sourced, environmentally friendly shirts and t-shirts from a shop on Francis Street in Dublin’s Liberties. Its origins lie in conversations between three friends as they journeyed back and forth between Dublin and the West of Ireland, on swimming, surfing and scuba-diving trips. The ocean-loving friends were Neil McCabe, Stephen O’Reilly and Damien Bligh. They’d noticed rubbish in the water and on beaches. It made them think about the ecological impact of plastics and modern fabrics, and how we produce and consume everything from food and drink to coffee and clothes. That got them rese Read More
How Dublin Works: Sharing in Creativity In recent years, Dublin has lost some of its most important creative spaces to a building boom that’s reminiscent of the Celtic Tiger era. Block T in Smithfield and South Studios near Cork Street were both closed down in 2016 with a significant loss of square footage for artists, photographers, designers and writers. In their place, however, a new generation of co-working spaces – aimed specifically at servicing Dublin’s creative communities – is coming into being. Although they have become abundant in many European capitals in the last few years, co-working spaces are a relatively new arrival in the Dublin property market. In the past 12 months the number Read More
Life on campus for the international student Ireland might be a small country, but our universities, institutes of technologies and colleges are incredibly diverse. Every year, tens of thousands of students from over 130 countries come here to study. Dublin, home to about 1.2 million people – and growing – is the destination of choice for the majority. Drawn by the city’s high-quality education offering and the possibility of securing a part-time job in one of the major tech firms with a Dublin base, including Google and Am Read More
World class teachers: Aoife McLysaght, geneticist Professor Aoife McLysaght is Principal Investigator in the Molecular Evolutionary Laboratory and Lecturer in Genetics, TCD. The thing that I find interesting and exciting: new ideas and trying to figure them out. And that works better when you’ve got somebody to talk about it with. You learn from the experience of working with people who are really good. And even though I’m now a Professor in Genetics at Trinity I still feel that this still goes on, that I learn from other people and I really enjoy the interactions that I have. That’s the difference between doing whatever it is you do at home at a desk Read More
