5.3.1 The Inner City Landscape

Dublin’s inner-city is the centre of activity, it’s the historical and cultural heart and an area that has seen renewed development over the last few decades, with an increase in the resident population. It is the location that every visitor (5.6 million in 2016) to Dublin will experience, with the contrasting experience of the quality of the O’Connell Street public realm intersecting with the traffic-laden Liffey quays as its centrepiece.

This strategy envisages a ‘green heart’ to the city founded on:

• The development of new city centre parks to address the current imbalance of open space, whereby inner-city residents have less area of parks per person. These are suggested to link with the UNESCO City of Literature designation by designing them as writers’ parks.
• Greening and public realm strategies that combine to enhance the core city landscape by providing quality to the exterior streets and spaces of the city.

The majority of Dublin’s historical parks also lie within the central area and contribute to telling the story of Dublin. The strategy provides for their conservation and restoration in the context of the modern city as well as interpreting their significance to both residents and visitors to the city.

The docklands urban regeneration area provides a new chapter in the development of the city centre landscape. Here, Irish and international designers are introducing contemporary placemaking, which contrasts to the older heart of the city.