Patrick Comerford
I was in north inner city Dublin earlier this week, to see the Pro-Cathedral on Marlborough Street, which has become Saint Mary’s Cathedral in recent weeks, to look again at the Welsh Chapel on Talbot Street, which is being saved from deterioration, and to visit Saint Francis Xavier Church on Upper Gardiner Street.
For too many years, Talbot Street has been a neglected, unattractive street in the northside inner city, and was hardly an inviting welcome to visitors to Dublin walking from Connolly Station on Amiens Street to O’Connell Street and the heart of the city centre.
But Dublin City Council is looking at the causes and effects of these realities. Dublin has a vibrant street art scene and the Talbot Lane Mural is a bright and colourful addition to Dulin’s public art scene and part of a positive initiative to make the area more attractive and inviting.
‘Memory Lane’ is a vibrant work of street art on Talbot Lane by Fionnuala Halpin that depicts the area’s history, with images of amusement arcades, a jarvey, Georgian doorways, literary figures such as James Joyce and Sean O’Casey, and the revolutionary suffragette Countess Markievicz.
The Talbot Lane mural was supported by Dublin City Council and celebrates the history, architecture and literary and political legacy of the north inner city, as well as recalling Barney’s Arcade in nearby Marlborough Place, the site in the 18th century of the Marlborough Green Synagogue, from about 1762 to 1790 or 1791.
Talbot Lane is a small, narrow cobbled alleyway between Talbot Street and Marlborough Place, features a collection of bright new street art murals, and this work of art is part of the city council’s regeneration project to brighten the area.
The artists who contributed to the art in the lane are Fionnuala Halpin, Inkfun, 23mGraphics, Kayde Middleton, and M50signs, working with the Lucky Bag collective as project manager and designer.
The artist Fionnuala Halpin works with businesses, schools, community groups and the city council to bring high quality art to the streets and neighbourhoods of Dublin.
Dublin City Council is rolling out its plans to revamp laneways in the north inner-city, and Talbot Lane is a colourful example of how this plan is working out. The council is also exploring the idea of opening up city-centre laneways for people to play cricket, inspired by a similar initiative in Melbourne, and Leinster Cricket has been invited to examine the viability of the ‘laneways cricket’ initiative.
A Green Party councillor Janet Horner said recently the initiative would be ideal for lanes that are closed to the public, like Harbour Court, which runs from Abbey Street to the quays. ‘We are starved of inner-city sports spaces,’ she said.
Brendan Doggett, a council administrative officer, pitched the idea for cricket in the laneways after people from Cricket Ireland pointed out that some laneways in Australia are used like this. Michael Darragh MacAuley, community sports engagement manager with the council, has pointed out that in Mountjoy Park the council organises tape ball, a kind of Pakistani street cricket that uses a tennis ball wrapped in electrical tape.
Dublin City Council is investing €2.5 million to revamp Talbot Street and plans to breathe new life into five nearby inner city laneways named in an action plan drawn up by the architect Seán Harrington. The idea is to get businesses that back onto laneways to open up their entrances, and to encourage people to make positive use of these smaller back streets, including Abbey Cottages, Byrne’s Lane, Coles Lane, Talbot Place and Jervis Lane Upper. Talbot Lane was the first of these laneways to be completed.
James Joyce went to school nearby in Belvedere and there is a sculpture of him by Marjorie Fitzgibbon at the O’Connell Street end of Talbot Street, while Sean O’Casey was born on Dorset Street. Constance Markievicz is quoted as saying: ‘Consciousness of their own dignity and worth should be encouraged in women.’ Sean O’Casey is depicted saying: ‘When it was dark … you carried the sun in your hand for me.’
Appropriately, the quotation from James Joyce that is part of his portrait by Fionnuala Halpin in ‘Memory Lane’ on Talbot Lane is: ‘When I die, Dublin will be written in my heart.’
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