High King Laoghaire Statue for Town Centre

Pictured (from left) Cllr. John Bailey, Dún Laoghaire Rathdown County Council; Ian M. Kane, Director & Co-Founder, Dún Laoghaire Town Football Club; Stephanie Batt, Dún Laoghaire Tidy Towns Committee and Michael Merrigan, Chairperson, Dún Laoghaire Community Association at the photo shoot to launch the Community Association's public campaign for the commissioning of a statue of High King Laoghaire. This photography by Ken Finlay features the statue of Vercingetorix erected in Alesia, France to commemorate the great Gaulish leader. The Community Association suggested that a scaled version of this type of statue would be very appropriate for the Town Centre as above. This type of statue would be an iconic monument for the centre of our hometown - the first to recognise and commemorate the eponymous founder of the "dún" which gave its name to the Town.

REOPENING OF LOWER GEORGE'S STREET DEFERRED AGAIN

The Executive Committee of the Dún Laoghaire Community Association is appalled at the delay in implementing the long-promised Traffic Management Plan for the Town Centre of Dún Laoghaire. The decision by Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council at its meeting on Monday 3rd March to defer the matter for another month is irresponsible and unwarranted.

This decision is unacceptable to the overwhelming majority of the residents of central Dún Laoghaire who have endured nearly seven years of inaction by the County Council on the disastrous effects on the local community caused by the closure of Lower George's Street to all traffic except buses. This has resulted in the creation of "rat-runs" through the narrow residential streets in the neighbourhood of Lower George's Street. The main users of these streets are the many elderly residents of the area and the children attending the two primary schools in the vicinity.

Furthermore, the Executive Committee of the Community Association is strongly opposed to any proposal to preserve Lower George's Street as a pedestrian zone. The attempts to have such a proposal adopted will most certainly cause a totally unwarranted and unacceptable delay in resolving the appalling traffic problems, upon which, the local community and this Association have campaigned for seven years.

Those County Councillors seeking to maintain the current situation on Lower George's Street would do well to consult the local community in the vicinity of Lower George's Street before embarking on any further attempt to frustrate the expressed will of that community as shown by three protest marches held by the community over the years.

The adoption of any ideologicaly driven proposal to maintain the current pedestrianisation of Lower George's Street will ultimately condemn the local community to many more years of traffic hell, hazardous streets and "rat runs" - a point that will not be forgotten by the local community in the run-up to the Local Government Elections next year.

Therefore, Community Association demands that our County Councillors fully respect and implement the views of the local community by the reopening of Lower George's Street to one-way traffic and to finally return the local residential streets to the community of central Dún Laoghaire without any further delay.

Michael Merrigan
Chairperson
Dún Laoghaire Community Association