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Moving Dublin explores the everyday world of movement in Dublin and its vast sprawling suburbs spreading out west from the coastal city. We look at how far the contemporary world of the Dublin commuter has strayed from the civic realm it constituted when Joyce wrote the Wandering Rocks chapter of Ulysses.

Moving Dublin is to be published in the form of a book and DVD in March 2009 by Gandon Editions

Moving Dublin has been commissioned by South Dublin County Council through In Context 3 and funded under the Department of Environment, Heritage and Local Government’s Per Cent for Art Scheme.

A Letter to the Irish Times

June 2008

Madam, - Ann Marie Hourihane’s interesting commentary on the aggressive behaviour of Dublin cyclists has led me to take up the pen myself and add one or two comments to an obviously heated debate that is taking place in Dublin today. (The cycle of violence on Dublin's lawless pavements: The Irish Times Online, Monday, June 2, 2008)

I agree with Miss Hourihane that the footpath is no place for cyclists. The footpaths in our cities and towns need to be safe, comfortable, clean and unpolluted places for people to gather in order to allow normal healthy civic processes to take place. I have some misgivings however about allowing the battle to become one of cyclists and pedestrians, natural allies in the debate on usage of public space in Dublin. The truth is that all alternatives to the car in Ireland (and many other places) have been marginalised and pushed into the very meager space and time left after the individual automobile has been catered for.

I am also surprised that Miss Hourihane feels threatened by the quantity of cyclists on the footpaths. The number of cyclists in Dublin has radically declined over the last two decades. While working on a public art project with a school in Tallaght on the theme of everyday journeys in the city I was surprised to find that none of the children cycled regularly to school, and that the school no longer even finds it necessary to have a bicycle rack. Yet the overcrowded bike rack was part of the school furniture when I was a child. (Cityloops, South Dublin Count Councils public art program In Context 3)

I really don’t want to be cast as a crank, as usually happens to defenders of minorities, and so I would like to refer my arguments to an interesting article by Antoine Haumont published recently as part of a wide study by the University Press of France on mobility in cities. M Haumont makes the case that in questions of occupation of public space we are talking about “rights”, in the same way as we talk about human rights, the right to education, the right to health care etc. In our example, we are talking about the rights of pedestrians to congregate safely on the footpaths, opposed to the rights of cyclists to find a path in the public space where they can actually advance without being crushed. These rights appear to be lesser than the established greater right of the private car to occupy, and render inaccessible to all other users, the largest part of the public space available, both while in motion and while stationary.

You can extend this question of rights to time. Recently, while attempting to cross the Colbert road to visit the National War Memorial Park with my seven-year-old twin daughters, we played a game of guessing when it would be our turn. As we huddled on a traffic island flanked by unrelenting streams of traffic on both sides, we counted the number of times the traffic alternated, stopped and started to allow cars from a small feeder link from the Inchicore road to come through; three times before it was considered timely to allow two small girls on roller skates and their mother cross the few meters that separated them from the park. The kindly computer that calculates the necessary time then allowed us approximately two seconds to make our crossing. We took our chance and dashed across, skidding and slipping as the beeper hurried us, warning that our two seconds of grace were almost up.

The right to advance, to move forward towards your chosen destination is one that is in constant dispute in modern cities. Each society chooses a form of mobility that seems right for them, and does everything to fluidify and facilitate this type of movement, unavoidably in the process slowing and impeding other forms of movement. In Ireland the choice is firmly behind the private car. This battle will have to be fought in Dublin, as it is being fought elsewhere. The issue is far bigger than bicycle versus pedestrian on a Dublin footpath. There are many other rights that have been brushed aside by the inalienable rights of the private car. It is now becoming obvious that we are talking about a much more fundamental question; the rights of present and future generations to live in and exploit urban space. - Yours, etc., Anne Cleary

Crusades for a new Ireland, clashes between property developers and ardent conservationists, hostilities between champions of road building versus rail... from major political clashes to the behind the lines skirmishes of pressure groups and residents associations, the battle for public space in Dublin takes many forms. Compared to these almost geological struggles, the dogfight between cyclists and pedestrians that occupies the thoughts and pens of many engaged citizens of Dublin seems insignificant. But is it? I was tempted to contribute my own subdued growl to this squabble in June of 2008, when I came across this article in the Irish Times: