Bar And Club Design Ireland

Temple Bar uncovered

INNER-CITY LIFE:  After 20 years of regeneration, the legacy of Dublin’s “cultural quarter” is street drinking and noise pollution, writes long-term resident FRANK MCDONALD  , but tourists and others living and working in Temple Bar tell KITTY HOLLAND  the area’s reputational difficulties are far outweighed by its vibrancy and creativity

TEMPLE BAR TODAY is nothing at all like the run-down, laid-back, “left bank” bohemian area it once was. Nor does it, by any yardstick, measure up to the official aspirations of 20 years ago to create a “bustling cultural, residential and small- business precinct that will attract visitors in significant numbers”.

It’s a sham. There’s a branch of Tesco installed in the former ESB showrooms on Fleet Street, the Bad Ass Cafe on Crown Alley – an authentic Temple Bar pit-stop since 1983 – is in danger of being turned into a “traditional Irish bar” and the big burger chains are eyeing Frankie’s in Temple Bar Square. The sell-out is nearly complete.

The huge hole in the middle of Meeting House Square is not just archaeological, it’s a symbol of the hollowness at the heart of Temple Bar. Everything that was said about it when Charles J Haughey inaugurated this grand projet in 1991 has turned out to be untrue. And they are still lying, or deluding themselves, to this day.

During the St Patrick’s Day festivities this year, every alcove, alley and doorway in the area was used as a pissoir. The scenes were disgusting beyond belief. On every street, men with far too many pints on board were urinating in public, and some were also vomiting – although that’s usually done by the vodka spritzer-laden girls.

Throughout the year, and particularly in summer, Temple Bar is trashed on a nightly basis by drunken louts, drug addicts, graffiti vandals and indifferent bands of buskers with portable amplifiers. The primary culture of Dublin’s designated “cultural quarter” is a street-drinking culture, catered for by many of its 30 bars or nightclubs.

Turning the area into the “Temple of Bars”, as former An Taisce chairman Michael Smith once dubbed it, was never part of the official agenda; indeed, the word “pubs” was barely mentioned back in 1991.

An Irish Town Planner's Blog: Temple Bar uncovered

INNER-CITY LIFE: After 20 years of regeneration, the legacy of Dublin’s “cultural quarter” is street drinking and noise pollution, writes long-term resident FRANK MCDONALD , but tourists and others living and working in Temple Bar tell KITTY HOLLAND the area’s reputational difficulties are far outweighed by its vibrancy and creativity It’s a sham. There’s a branch of Tesco installed in the former ESB showrooms on Fleet Street, the Bad Ass Cafe on Crown Alley – an authentic Temple Bar pit-stop since 1983 – is in danger of being turned into a “traditional Irish bar” and the big burger chains are eyeing Frankie’s in Temple Bar Square. The sell-out is nearly complete. During the St Patrick’s Day festivities this year, every alcove, alley and doorway in the area was used as a pissoir. The scenes were disgusting beyond belief. On every street, men with far too many pints on board were urinating in public, and some were also vomiting – although that’s usually done by the vodka spritzer-laden girls. Throughout the year, and particularly in summer, Temple Bar is trashed on a nightly basis by drunken louts, drug addicts, graffiti vandals and indifferent bands of buskers with portable amplifiers. The primary culture of Dublin’s designated “cultural quarter” is a street-drinking culture, catered for by many of its 30 bars or nightclubs. Turning the area into the “Temple of Bars”, as former An Taisce chairman Michael Smith once dubbed it, was never part of the official agenda; indeed, the word “pubs” was barely mentioned back in 1991. Neither did the city planners have any hesitation in granting permission for new pubs and extensions to existing licensed premises. Nearly an acre of extra licensed space was shovelled into the area in the first five years of the Temple Bar project. Small neighbourhood bars were turned into mega-pubs and “hotels” materialised out of nowhere, purely as vehicles to get licences for large public bars at ground-floor level and a “function room” (nightclub) in their basements. But the senior Department of the Environment official on TBR’s board, Finian Matthews, insisted that it had no power to control the extent of any use, including pubs – so it became a rubber stamp.

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