As the title says, this is a new thread for chat about Dun Laoghaire in general without the traffic & transport nonsense.
Enjoy.
I run through this area at least four times a week, where is the bike/pump track? The only one I've ever seen like that is the mud piles the kids are using to go round BMX style beside the tennis club during the last month or two (fenced off this week but i saw kids have opened up the fence already). Talk about litigation waiting to happen, amazed they haven't leveled the mud yet.
yep, tennis is an interesting one - like you say club membership can be inexpensive, my family membership is the same price as one son's membership at st joseph's football. probably the culture varies with each tennis club - there's no snobbery at all at my place, which is not the same as saying people wouldn't be put off in the first place. maybe a step to breaking those barriers would be to have half decent public courts?
i take your point about table tennis in ireland! but still, my point is that lots could be done at not a whole lot of cost in the grand scheme of things.
There is no snobbery in my tennis club either but then again we are all middleclass and we could afford tennis lessons for our children.
If you are a child who isnt invited on playdates and your classmates run off together to tennis lessons after school to their private tennis club then you are going to think tennis is not for you.
These children wont be on bikes in the new cycle lanes either, they will be the children brought to McDonalds for Sunday lunch and fed unhealthy cheap food everyday which leads to weight gain, on and on it goes.And they definitely wont be brought to exhibitions in the Lexicon or sadly to choose books to borrow there,its such a middleclass facility and off putting to unconfident readers.
You know what would really be great for helping prevent obesity in children? Being able to use safe, protected, cycling facilities in their neighbourhood, be it Dun Laoghaire, Deansgrange or wherever. And in particular to go to school - an activity that they could do every day. No class discrimination and the vast majority of children have bikes.
They are at the back by the old playground, down from the new one. Free to play just turn up.
obviously we're not going to get back onto cycle lanes in this thread but i don't think that you can just claim that they won't be used by a certain demographic.
similarly with the library; i appreciate what you mean about it being a middle class facility but the librarians do do outreach work, they make kids books available and they're as helpful as they can be in my experience. i'm not sure how one would make it a more working class friendly experience?
...actually i do, i turned up one time and there was a yoga and baby books thing on. i guess you could argue that yoga and baby books is an experience for all social groups but i'd laugh at you if you did.
The libraries are a great facility, but unless you live close to one or your parents frequent libraries, it's unlikely you will spend much time in them as a kid.
Not surprisingly, they're all in the centres of affluent towns/villages in the borough. And it's more expensive housing that's within easy reach of them.
That's just the way it is unfortunately, life is harder if you got unlucky in the postcode lottery at birth.
Its still a pump track if it has been made using the left over topsoil? It had a series of rollers and two berms either end.
Their flagship library/cultural centre is within sight of their significant Council headquarters. Just like other affluent towns, like Tallaght.
I think you've just described yourself to a tee taxiperson, you haven't been anywhere, haven't done anything that really tells you anything about the actual World the rest of us are living in.
I've news for you, this isn't 1983, you're the outlier.
And I bet the officials have a nice big carpark that they use free of charge while telling the plebs to buy raingear and do their bit for the environment.
it would be interesting to know the spend on the Gorey library, I doubt if it came anywhere near forty million and yet its more user friendly that the Lexicon, ie staff at the door as you enter so help readily available and everything on the one floor. I believe the new library in Wexford town is very nice too, both libraries probably came in under forty million and the people of Wexford are as much into their galleries and meeting rooms etc as Dunlaoghaire residents.
Oh really, thats deliberate?, would have though we were far litigatious for such a thing in this country and assumed the kids had fashioned the mudpiles in a "course" that way by riding it themselves. Would be great to see if that is indeed the intention as it seemed like great craic for them. I'd be concerned though that the first kid to fall off their bike and break an arm will have their mother suing DLR within an inch of their lives.
Parking next door in the Square shopping centre is free if you stay for under two hours. Plenty of time to borrow a book or two.
It is fenced off now so perhaps it is awaiting signage or some other remedial work. There were mini diggers etc working on it at one point so I assume it wasn't locals doing that.
That's gas. Every time I slag off the "lexicon", the Mother And Baby Yoga session I saw in there once is forefront in my mind. Spot on
Ha ha. I was with my then 4yr old boy. He looked at me with an expression of bewilderment that said ‘who are these people?’. I couldn’t have loved him more. We got our thomas the tank engines and left.
Hmmm....new statue...The Fairy in Dunleary...
or the Qu**r on the Pier??
Are you 7?
kop on…
Excited to see what they do with this. Great to see kids of all ages out bombing around on it.
I was concerned about some of the edges. There were some big rocks around the outside which might have been problematic so hopefully it will be tided up.
“Dun Leary’s Last Corner Shop” will change to new ownership, leading to an outpouring of well wishes from locals.
https://www.thejournal.ie/dun-laoghaire-last-corner-shop-close-5559728-Sep2021/
He made the front page of The Irish Times 🤣
And a more in depth article within the paper. A very interesting individual!
I heard Stillorgan library is closing, it is for refurbishment???
Its one of the few libraries that has easy parking, hope its a temporary closure.
The whole site is being redeveloped and a new library in addition to apartments are being built.
Thank You
This is the revised site with the bowling alley development in white finish adjacent.
To my knowledge, the new library will have no public parking provided.
The DLR Lexicon has a car park underneath, just in case you missed it....
Does anyone know what is being done with the stretch of waste ground just north of Blackrock Park (where the circus goes when it's in town)? I saw that it's all dug up and fenced off.
AFAIK, at one stage there were plans for that to be a skate park. Not sure of this, but either way nothing has been happening there for quite a while now.
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