The Dublin Community Blog

I only heard about this yesterday so just posting to make people aware. Demolition of the West Stand in Lansdowne Road is beginning this weekend, and DART/Rail services are disrupted:

DART: During the August weekend, DART services will be suspended between Connolly and Sydney Parade Stations. DART services will operate between:

Howth/Malahide – Connolly
Sydney Parade – Bray/Greystones

A shuttle bus service will operate between Connolly and Booterstown Stations for customers making cross-city journeys, or travelling from southside stations to the city centre.

Further information on Irish Rail website and AA Roadwatch.

Have a great Bank Holiday

While reading some headlines on BreakingNews.ie I came across a story about 50 major infrastructural projects that have been proposed under a new fast-track process designed to bypass the normal planning system. Included in the story is the sentence

One company has also reportedly put forward plants (sic) for a cable-car service in Dublin city.

I was curious so I googled “Cable Car Dublin” and came across the following on irish-architecture.com from February 2006

A private consortium is proposing to develop a cable car service along the Liffey Quays in Dublin, running between Heuston Station and Docklands. The cable cars would transport sightseers at heights approaching 80 metres (264ft) above the river from the Guinness Brewery near Heuston to a terminal located near the planned national conference centre at Spencer Dock

Yes the picture makes it look as bad as I imagined. It reminds me of a tacky cable car ride I took in Disney World several years ago. This is not a major infrastructural project, it’s a tourist trap created by some private company, so I don’t understand why it would be fast tracked through the planning process. I can see the instant appeal where people will go “Oh cool” but I can imagine the novelty would wear off pretty quickly.