2.1.8 Post-war Dublin

Decentralisation and Garden City concepts formed a focus of emerging town planning principles, which included the provision of open space as a central feature. Suburban growth pushed the city to new limits each decade (Marino in the 1920s and 1930s, Crumlin and Cabra in the 1940s, Ballyfermot and Artane in the 1950s and Finglas and Ballymun in the 1960s).

With decentralisation, the inner-city population decreased. Even as the county’s population increased over the years, Dublin’s inner-city continued to decline and urban decay blighted areas. Some older city parks changed during this period as new demands required new facilities. Mountjoy Square, for example, changed from a park with restricted public access to an open public park with tennis courts by the 1930s.

While the new housing suburbs succeeded in creating better housing, their provision of public open space tended to be quantitative rather than qualitative. Large areas of grassed and featureless green space were common, in direct contrast to the earlier elegant city parks that were focal points and received more design attention and investment. These new parks required further input and this has been a focus of work for the Parks and Landscape Services of Dublin City Council since its establishment in the 1950s.