Non-encounter

I needed to go to Ballymun today, because that's where my local Health Service office is. Ballymun is a strange part of Dublin. It was intended to be a brave new world of urban renewal for public housing, but almost immediately became synonymous with anti-social behaviour and crime. Neighbourhoods and streets which previously had 'Ballymun' as part of their names suddenly decided that they should change to a connection with Glasnevin (which has a more up-market cachet to it). And then the vicious circle began. The more outsiders derided Ballymun the more the residents rebelled, the more the district became increasingly outside the pale. I remember being brought there as an architectural student and being told that this was a great social experiment and wasn't it wonderful what was happening. The reality was that people who were moved there found themselves without any meaningful infrastructure; no shops, no social facilities, no sports amenities - nothing but high-rise residential blocks constructed in featureless prefabricated concrete.

It took a long, long time for the planners behind the whole sorry exercise to own up to having made a mistake, and now we're told that there's a wonderful regeneration happening and that Ballymun will magically transform itself into a Dublin suburb that everyone can be proud of. I must say that I don't see this turning into a reality on the ground. Admittedly, lots of new buildings have sprung up; many of the notorious towers have been demolished, and there's a veneer of regeneration in evidence. But it's still half-hearted. Many of the original apartment blocks still remain, adding an air of depressing communist-style architecture to the area. The 'shopping centre' remains a total joke, and the hoardings around it, which, still blissfully not updated to reflect the reality of current economic circumstances, offer their wares to potential developers and describe the locale as being 'a hub of Metro North' (a grandiose scheme for which there is no money available), advertise an irrelevant vision of what might have been, and speak volumes for an opportunity missed and for utterly inept public representatives who sit in their ivory towers and spout their platitudes.

Okay, I'm ranting a bit. But I'd heard so much about what an amazing transformation was happening in this part of the city that I'd actually begun to believe it. It's sad to discover that it's all a smoke screen.

The blip? It's near the entrance to the Ballymun Civic Centre, where the Health Service office is located.

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On a more positive note, I had one of my chew-and-chat night's tonight. We went to Odessa, in Dame Court. This was my first time there, I hadn't done any research beforehand, so I didn't know what to expect. It was good. We were shown to a downstairs table, which I wasn't sure about to begin with, but turned out to be probably better than the main area. Our waitress was fantastic, and the food was very good too. Our only complaint would be that the food on the plate didn't bear all that much resemblance to its description on the menu (Tom was expecting pork belly but got, admittedly excellent, pork chop, and my 'sticky toffee pudding' turned out to be a, very nice, steamed sponge). A good experience, all in all, topped off with a few Japanese beers in our after-food favourite haunt down the road. 2.30 am NiteLink home.