Kieran’s Comments in City Council Chamber in response to investment of E.1.2m in Blackrock Village Revamp, Autumn 2010:

This is a most welcome investment into one of the city’s earliest suburbs and also with a very rich heritage.

This area warrants a serious tidy up and the implementation of a public realm strategy that not also brings the community centre into focus but also the riverside and collapsed pier. The pier dates to around 1825, the stone of which it is said came from Beaumont Quarry. The pier at the moment is overrun with the invasive and unchecked species Japanese Knotweed.

The most welcome playground and small park with plaza and seating to be located in the Ursuline Convent and the adjoining demense will exist in a landscape first developed in the 1720s by the Tuckey family, who were the first to take down part of the town walls of the city in the early eighteenth century and build a new street and a quay on a site which later was culverted over to form the Grand Parade.

I would like that the heritage whether it be the history or the flora or fauna of the harbour area to be harnessed at this early stage – that the public realm is thought out and harnesses the pillars of the area’s identity, harnessing the essence of what makes Blackrock great and attractive to the many people who live and work within the area and also to the many people who walk the area frequently coming from other parts of the city.