A new city for the West of Ireland
A Galway-based businessman plans to create a new city, and he's got some powerful friends behind him.
HERE's an idea for anyone fed up with cramped, polluted urban environs: build your own dream city.
Sound crazy? Galway-based businessman William A Thomas doesn't think so. And nor do the 1,500 companies around the world who support him. Even as I type, the Rockwell Shipping MD already has architects and engineers drawing up plans for the West of Ireland's brand new City of the Sacred Heart.
His arguments for the new city are not mere pipe dreams; they are based on undeniable and very visible facts. First, Ireland's population has shifted from being 37% rural-based to 7% rural-based. This, says Thomas, is due to the fact that the West of Ireland has no sustainable employment. Second, Ireland's economic rejuvenation has meant that those who emigrated to find work are now returning to the country and people from other countries are being drawn here. In fact, the population of Ireland is expected to grow to around 6 million by 2020, with 2.5 million living in the Greater Dublin area alone.
However, the infrastructures of the five existing medieval cities in Ireland are unable to cope with such expansion. These cities are not expandable in the centres; the roads are narrow and gridlocked with traffic. The solution to this has been to build housing estates in the suburbs, which, Thomas argues, had no pre-planned infrastructure or provision of amenities or facilities for the inhabitants, leading to a variety of social problems, including unprovoked violence. He argues that ghettos have been created and are continuing to be created, particularly for Ireland's immigrant population. Ghettos have been created and are continuing to be created.
Prices, too, have played a major role in forcing people into housing that doesn't meet their needs - on any level - with many forced to commute very long distances to Dublin's city centre simply to be able to live in less expensive accommodation.
The Government, now painfully aware of these problems, has launched its National Spatial Strategy to help tackle them. But the emphasis, says Thomas, has been firmly placed on the Greater Dublin area, and what he calls the 'U-bend' of Cork, Limerick and back up to Belfast, to the detriment of the West of Ireland, which is losing out substantially on job opportunities, education, healthcare and political representation.
"Politicians" says Thomas, "tend to forget that we live in the Republic of Ireland, not the Republic of Dublin."
His City of the Sacred Heart, Thomas hopes, will redress the balance, allowing the 20,000 young people who leave the West in search of employment and education opportunities to stay at home and flourish.
"The new city will be properly positioned and properly proportioned, with Knock International Airport as its gateway to the world," says Thomas. "The idea is for us to put together a package for the Government and say: this can be done."
Two countries that have already embraced this attitude are Sweden, where a brand new, well proportioned, functional and policeable city - 85% EU funded - is being built outside Stockholm, and Holland, where two new towns are being constructed.
There is some fairly weighty support for Ireland's new city. Some €115 million has been pledged in investment funds from companies abroad, with one firm offering to put €17 million into the project. Boeing has also expressed interest by sending its executive vice-president Earl Godby for discussions. Bishop Thomas Flynn is also an advocate.
Thomas is planning on rallying public support by fielding between six and 10 Dail candidates in the General Election.
The city's architect, John Cully, was a fan of the idea before he came on board. He saw a piece on the proposal and asked to become involved because it fitted in with his own philosophies.
"Architecture," Cully says, "is not a surface thing. Good architecture is based on a core philosophy. Get this right and everything else will follow.
Cully says their vision for the City of the Sacred Heart "flies in the face of all orthodox wisdom on city design". That, he says, is a good thing, particularly when you consider that modern city design is based on a motorised population. This does not make for good city design, he says, with people living on top of intersections and ugly, varicose veins of roads sprawling hither and thither. Good public transport is the key so that people can use their cars on discretionary basis, rather than of necessity.
"Our vision," says William Thomas, "is to build a city that will be to Ireland what Ancient Athens was to the Greeks, and to the world."
Cully, who made a splash in May last year with his imaginatively remodelled Edwardian house in Carrickmines, is just the man for such a task. A passionate disbeliever in Le Corbusier's approach to housing, he says the notion of workers being happy living way up in the sky leads to Ballymun-type situations.
At the same time, Cully is keen to point out that separate, individual houses are way down on the list of priorities. Instead, spacious duplex and apartments, ranging up to 500sq. m will be the norm, with the initial house-building target set at around 44,000. A huge premium will be placed on public art and street furniture and Cully expects a number of prominent architects will produce signature buildings for the city.
The plans also provide for a circular 'Phoenix Park; around the city, containing only recreational facilities, such as sports clubs and horseriding, and no commercial or private buildings.
In addition, all field monuments, such as dolmen, will have park formed around them so they are left undisturbed.
Cully is a firm believer that such monuments are where they are for a very good reason.
This is a view that Thomas shares, believing that even the airport at Knock wasn't built in the middle of nowhere simply for the sake of it, but that it was built in preparation for a new city - such as the City of the Sacred Heart.
As George Bernard Shaw said, "You see things; and you say, 'Why?' But I dream things that never were; and I say, 'Why not?"'.