The Dublin Community Blog

According to Breaking News.ie, since the Luas was launched in June 2004 some 50 million journeys have been made with 80,000 people travelling on it everyweek. The website has a handy list of attractions which are located close to the Luas, handy for tourists.

Taken from the Red line Luas in May 2005.

I finally paid a visit to one of northside Dublin’s most well known restaurants last weekend: 101 Talbot restaurant.

Taking a chance, I rang them at 8pm on Saturday night hoping a table might be free and thankfully my gamble paid off (The bank holiday weekend may have helped). We arrived at 9.30 to find the restaurant buzzing and full of people. There’s no background music but because of the layout of the dining area you don’t really miss it. The hum of people talking gives the place enough background noise so you don’t feel like your neighbour’s table is listening to everything you say. We ordered our meals (Garlic bread and olives to start, steak and cod for the main courses) and apart from a mix up with the starters, the grub was great and the wine was excellent. The coffee was good too, oh and for dessert you have to have the creme brulee!

We especially liked the fact that even the most expensive wines cost no more then €25. No pretension here, just good food and wine at a good price.

By the way the restaurant wasn’t as empty as it seems in these pictures, I took the pics at the end of the night!

The Minister for Transport, Martin Cullen, has just announced the route for the new Metro North line from Dublin City Centre, to Dublin Airport.

Metro North will run for 17 kilometres will take in both Ballymun and Drumcondra along the way.

There will be 15 stops starting at St Stephen’s Green, O’Connell Bridge, Parnell Square (possible stop), Mater Hospital, Drumcondra, Griffith Avenue, Dublin City University, Ballymun, Santry Demense, Metropark (!?), Dublin Airport, Nevinstown, Swords, Seatown and Lissenhall. A journey from the city centre to the airport is expected to take 17 minutes.

The full route map is available here

The project is expected to be finished in 2012 and will use underground, surface and elevated tracks. It is estimated 34 million passengers a year will travel on the service, with trains running every four minutes in each direction, increasing to every 90 seconds during peak periods.

If it happens as is being proposed, and happens on time and on budget (two very, very difficult targets to achieve in major Irish infrastructure projects) it will be a hugely benificial service.

Let us know your thoughts on the Metro in our latest poll over there >>>>

The former Lord Mayor of Dublin, Councillor Dermot Lacey, can often be seen riding around the capital on his e-bike, but sadly no more.

Leaving the City Hall on Tuesday October 17, Cllr Lacey was distraught to discover his beloved bike was no longer chained to the bike stand outside.

“The irony of all this is that I was at a meeting talking about the need for a proper transport sytem for Dublin and the failure of the Government to establish a democratic Dublin Transportation Authority and the need for a proper energy policy. Only to come out and find my own transport gone and my energy on this occasion sapped.

“Because of it’s internal operating methods without the individual key which I still have, the bike is actually of no use at all to anyone else. It is a heavy enough bike and would be of limited use to anyone without that key.

“There are few of these bikes in Ireland and they are very distinctive, so if anyone has any information can they contact me at 087 26 46 960.”
The  e-bike is an efficent electronic environmentally friendly bike that gets you to your destination with less effort than normal push bikes, Cllr Lacey explained.

This is the councillor’s second bike, the first had the honour of leading the St Patrick’s Day parade in Dublin in 2003 and was also a familiar sight around the city. However the first one was also stolen from the same spot three years ago.

I’m a big fan of all variations and types of coffee, depending on my mood or the time of day I might have espresso, latte, cappuccino or good old black coffee. In fact for me one of the great benefits of living in Dublin city is the ability to pop out and sit in a cafe reading a book and enjoying a good cup of joe.

Last Saturday I visited Starbucks on Dawson Street and ordered a grande latte with whipped cream and caramel drizzle (I know, I know, it’s such a pretentious order that I felt like slapping myself in the face but damn it tastes good!). Then I sat down and texted a few friends to see if they’d be interested in joining me. Whow you get some interesting reactions from people when it comes to Starbucks, “They’re Evil!” for example, tends to pop up a lot.

For me they’re safe, by that I mean I always have a good coffee when I visit. I’ve quite often bought a coffee from O’Briens or West Coast Coffee and two minutes later ended up throwing the foul tasting muck in a bin. They’re just not consistent enough in their coffee for my liking, in fact I’ve yet to find a take-away coffee establishment as dependable as Starbucks.

They also seem to support fair trade coffee and have been ranked 45th on Business Ethics’ list of “The 100 Best Corporate Citizens” of 2004, I presume that’s a good thing.
One bad point I can agree with is Starbucks’ tendency to start popping up everywhere and putting the little guys out of business (then again if the little guy’s coffee tastes like mud, should we really weep at their demise?!)

What do you think, should we start defending Dublin against an onslaught of Starbucks cafes?
Are they evil?

Sorry about the shaky picture, took it after my caffeine fix :)

I’ve just read with disgust that protestors from Monaghan, aggrieved (admittedly genuinely) with the downgrading of the emergency status of the hospital recently, are planning on taking their protest from their locality in Monaghan, to cause traffic and transport chaos along the M50 in Dublin.

They are operating under the belief that the seat of power for the country is in Dublin, and until they start to hurt the people of Dublin, that their local issues will not be listened to or addressed.

Now, I for one have serious issues with this. Whilst I have no issues with people expressing their grievances with various powers of authority on any occasion, such are the joys and benefits of democracy, I have a serious issue with people purposely setting out to cause misery and suffering to innocent bystanders who, in this case, already have a miserable time trying to negotiate their way through Dublin traffic to start with!!

What makes this all the more galling, is the fact that The Monaghan Community Hospital Alliance (MCHA) chairman, Peadar Mc Mahon, recognises the fact that he will cause innocent bystanders to suffer “People have died as a result of the downgrading of Monaghan Hospital. We are prepared to go to any lengths to remove that anxiety,”

If you wish to voice your anger, support or otherwise with this cause, please feel free to comment here, participate in our poll (see right) or, contact the Monaghan Hospital Alliance direct, contact details are:

County Monaghan Alliance
C/O Peadar McMahon
Mullan Road,
Emyvale,
Co. Monaghan.
Tel: 086-8156816
email: peadar@emyvale.net

Thursday’s taxi strike has been cancelled to allow talks to take place between taxi unions and the Department of Transport.
Traffic in Dublin was severely disrupted following yesterday’s protest when up to 1,000 taxis blocked O Connell Street according to news reports.

Yesterday’s protest was the fourth protest since July.

Taxi drivers are protesting against a number of changes which have been put in place by the Taxi Regulator and are due to come into action at the end of the month including doing away with luggage charges and the €1.50 hiring charge for picking up from Dublin Airport. The drivers are also protesting against increasing the fee paid by drivers who work the airport from €70 a year to €500.

News links: Breaking News, RTE and the Irish Times (sub required).

It is being reported today that the long overdue Dublin Port Tunnel is being scheduled to open in mid-November, with a date to be confirmed within the next two weeks. Plans are apparently underway to hold a charity fundraising 10km swim run through the tunnel on the weekend prior to its opening. More details on the tunnel as and when we get them.

DART Delays

Originally uploaded by DjMagra.

The DART’s (light rail) around Dublin are a broken mess this morning! It took me over an hour to do a trip that normally takes 20 minutes, to say I’m not impressed this morning would be an understatement. If you’re planning on taking a Dart this morning, forget about it!! Grrr!

Following approval by the Minister for Transport Martin Cullen, the Luas Green line is to be extended from Sandyford to Cherrywood by 2010 with an estimated increased from 10m passengers a year to 18m. The works will consist of an additional 7.5km of tracks. All we need now is to join the Green and Red lines together and we’re laughin. More on Breaking News.