Student accommodation developer challenges decision to rezone land near UCD to open space
decision to rezone lands owned by a student accommodation developer from residential to open space was done for valid planning reasons, the High Court has been told.
The council made the argument in defending an action brought by developer Colbeam Ltd, which is challenging the local authority's 2022-2028 county development plan arising from the rezoning decision.
Colbeam has sought to build a 698-bed student accommodation complex at Our Lady's Grove, Goatstown Road, Dublin 14, which is about 850 metres from
University College Dublin
(UCD).
The developer previously secured planning permission from
An Coimisiún Pleanála
for the development, but this decision was quashed following a separate, successful High Court challenge.
READ MORE
Colbeam had bought the site in 2017 from the Congregation of the Religious of Jesus and Mary for €13 million.
The land – which had been part of a wider campus that includes Our Lady's Grove primary and secondary school – was zoned residential under the council's 2016-2022 county development plan, which was in effect at the time of the purchase, Colbeam has said.
But before adopting the 2022-2028 county development plan, councillors adopted motions to rezone Colbeam's land from residential to open space.
On Thursday, David Browne SC, for the council, said councillors adopted motions to rezone primarily for planning-based reasons. These included consideration for open space at the Our Lady's Grove campus and concerns about incremental development on that space.
Colbeam has argued that councillors had regard for 'irrelevant consideration' in adopting the motions to rezone.
But Mr Browne said that if the principal reason for the rezoning decision was a planning one then that was a valid decision.
Mr Brown said certain remarks made by councillors in debating the rezoning motions were indicative of 'marginal' considerations in the decision to rezone and should not invalidate the decision.
On Wednesday, Neil Steen SC, for Colbeam, had argued that councillors had regard for 'irrelevant consideration' in adopting the motions to rezone.
One of these irrelevant considerations arose from purported comments made at the meeting by
Fine Gael
councillor Barry Saul, one of the members who initially proposed to rezone the land.
In advancing the argument to rezone the lands, Cllr Saul referred to 'a failure of moral obligation' on the part of the Congregation of the Religious of Jesus and Mary to maintain a required level of open space on their lands, Mr Steen said. The open space requirement arose from an 'institutional land' designation.
Mr Steen said Mr Saul made it explicit that part of his intention in supporting the rezoning was to address this 'failure'. Counsel said moral obligation was an irrelevant consideration in the decision to rezone.
Mr Steen said his clients were entitled under legislation to a decision uncontaminated by irrelevant considerations.
He said if the court found councillors took an irrelevant consideration into account in making the decision to rezone then the decision should be quashed.
Mr Justice David Holland will give his ruling at later date.
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Irish Times
36 minutes ago
- Irish Times
An Irish industrial folly spawns a new generation of cutting-edge creativity
THIS TOO WILL PASS The failures of our past litter the landscape. Some are more visible than others. Drive out into the Inagh Valley, in Connemara, and there is beauty at every turn. Lakes reflect the outline of mountains, and sheep nibble picturesquely at gorse. Experiencing it from the road reminds you that we have already encroached on this wild paradise by laying down the tarmac, but that is only the start of things. Here and there are stands of abandoned cement, the shells of houses and hotels, the shadow of the old railway. The Carrolls salmon hatchery is one of the more hidden of Ireland's industrial follies, and it is a remarkable story. Back in the late 1980s, the PJ Carroll cigarette company was branching out, and commissioned the architectural practice Scott Tallon Walker to design what was envisaged as the world's biggest, most advanced salmon hatchery. Ronnie Tallon had already designed the company's award-winning cigarette factory – which now houses part of Dundalk Institute of Technology – in 1967. Now, on the shores of Derryclare Lough, his firm created a fully automated, computer-controlled centre laid out like the set of a James Bond movie. READ MORE The idea was to supply offshore salmon farmers with smolt (young salmon), and it worked for a time. But the site was too high up, and the costs of pumping water and of transporting the smolt by helicopter ultimately lost the enterprise millions. When the business closed it left behind extraordinary, atmospheric relics, including the long, low-lying modernist buildings, a series of large green water tanks and a jumble of industrial detritus. Interface, in the Inagh Valley Step up Alannah Robins, who since 2016 has transformed the fishery's bizarre scars into Interface , a gallery, studios and artist's residency. Taking on such a venture might seem daunting, but Robins, a graduate of the National College of Art and Design , says that 'at some point you have to dare to do it, to dare to start'. Sharing the space with separate aquaculture and scientific research projects, Interface's artists explore issues connected with science and ecology, although, Robins notes, another crucial aspect is to give artists space to realise their own projects in the extraordinary environment of the Inagh Valley. In addition to this, a major reforestation project is under way in tandem with what she describes as 'slow art' projects and an annual woodland symposium. It all has what Robins calls a magical strangeness. Lindar Schirmer at the Interface woodland symposium in 2023 In a model she discovered while living and working in Sweden, Interface is a place where artists can work through ideas, move their practice forward, experiment and exhibit without getting stuck in the cumbersome system of application and rejection that is a daily reality for most. Artists can use the former egg-hatching spaces, and even the old industrial fridges, for exhibitions, as Jo Kimmins did most recently with her Aquacious show in May. Wider projects expand over the entire site, including the water tanks, which have seen choirs, dance and sculptural installations use the pick of the abandoned infrastructure and mechanical bits and bobs, a great deal of which is still strewn about. The studio spaces are vital. As artists are increasingly forced out of cities by the lack of affordable places to live and work, rural provision is more important than ever, and Galway International Arts Festival makes for an ideal time to go and explore. Now a regular part of the festival's artistic programme, this year's Interface exhibition has been curated by the former Interface resident Valeria Ceregini. This Too Will Pass takes its title from Richard Long's work of the same name. 'It resonated with me,' Ceregini says, expanding on the idea that, although we often use the phrase to see us through hard times, the balance of nature is passing too, before our eyes. This Too Will Pass, by Richard Long. Photograph courtesy of the artist Maladjusted 1, by Thomas Brezing She also quotes another phrase, this time the Irish proverb 'Bíonn siúlach scéalach', or 'a walk is a story' – which is true, if only we remember to think and look. Beside Long, Ceregini is showing work by Thomas Brezing, Naomi Draper, Aisling Dunne, Darran McGlynn and Katherine Sankey. There will also be performances by Ceara Conway and by Luke Casserly, with his sublime meditation on the bog lands, Distillation . [ Distillation review: This ode to our landscape will give you a new perspective on Ireland's bogs, writes Eanna Ní Lamhna Opens in new window ] Conway is an artist and vocalist; her performance, Incant, builds on work developed with Ormston House in Limerick, and arising from her own residency at Interface, where, she says, 'I really responded to the landscape. It's beautiful but also bleak. The Sitka spruce, they look like skeletons to me.' Now, working with the musicians Matthew Nolan and Lisa Dowdall, she will perform her haunting vocals to her films from previous years. 'It is a way of working that goes deeper,' she says. 'It lets me slow down and really sit with the work.' It also leads to an intriguing layering of time as past, present and possible futures connect. 'I'm mostly pessimistic at the moment,' Ceregini says. 'But I can find hope in the works of the artists. There is a positivity in seeing things differently. Even just a small action can make a difference.' With support from the Arts Council and Galway County Council , Interface – – is run on a membership system, and Robins is raising funds to build more studios on the shores of the lake. This Too Will Pass opens at Interface Inagh, Recess, Co Galway, on Saturday, July 12th FUNERAL FOR ASHES At Funeral for Ashes, at Festival Printworks Gallery in Galway, you will able to walk this year among the ghosts of a dying forest. Three-dimensional scans of Irish ash trees, mosses, fallen branches, leaves and loam hover in hues of green, brown and silvered pixels, as haunting music plays. 'Every movement you make has an impact,' explains Conor Maloney, who has created the immersive installation with his fellow artist John Conneely. [ Disease set to wipe out 90% of Ireland's ash trees is a 'national emergency' - expert review Opens in new window ] Conneely steps into the space and demonstrates, raising an arm. As he does, the outlines of ancient tree bark diffuse into ghosts, scattering in the digital air. 'Stand still,' he says, 'and things will resolve.' Even as a work in progress at the University of Galway's Centre for Creative Technologies, where the development studio is a landscape of wires, cables, monitors, speakers and keyboards, the effect is mesmerising. Funeral for Ashes, by John Conneely and Conor Maloney 'Ireland has the worst forest coverage, the fewest trees, of any European country, barring Iceland,' Conneely says, noting that Iceland has the excuse of all those lava floes. 'We have just 11 per cent, and of that only about 1.5 per cent is native woodlands. The rest is Sitka spruce.' 'Ash,' Maloney says, 'was revered by the Celts. Under Brehon Law the penalty for felling an ash tree would have been the same as it was for murdering the chief of a tribe.' He goes on to describe the ancient use of ash in making druidic staffs, and its continuing use for hurleys. 'Arguably, colonialism destroyed the culture that revered the trees,' Maloney says, 'but at the same time we have to take agency for the way we're treating our own woodlands now. The stewardship of our native woodlands has been in the hands of what is effectively a logging company. And the ash-dieback disease came from importing infected trees.' 'Spend time in a native woodland forest and you understand how trees can make you feel,' Conneely says, describing the walks the pair took as research in some of Ireland's remaining old-growth forests. 'It makes you feel like you're a child again, climbing over fallen branches, touching the trunks. Everyone should do it, as often as they can.' He has composed music that develops with the movement of the piece at 432 Hertz, which some people regard as 'the frequency of the universe. It has a measurable effect on your sensibilities – when I was putting it all together I was way more chilled out ...' 'There is an argument that nothing is ever dead in the forest,' Conneely says; he gives as an example the layer of mycelium that facilitates what he describes as 'data transfer' between plants. The pair talk about the music that can be generated from the electromagnetic frequencies of plants, and how researchers are using fungal moulds to explore how to map more effective networks. We lose more than we think when we lose our forests. [ From the archive: Michael Viney – The secret life in my handful of garden soil Opens in new window ] In the final days before the exhibition opens, the pair are tweaking the programming so that people will have to work together to orchestrate their own experience of the piece, for better or worse. Artworks that include an opportunity to destroy enact a strange pull. I am reminded of teamLab's work The World of Irreversible Change , from 2022, which created a rich world, peopled with busy figures against an exotically beautiful landscape. Touching the figures 'annoys' them. Repeated touching causes fights to break out, followed by war, which will destroy the world of the art work entirely. The desire to touch is almost impossible to resist. Funeral for Ashes is more forgiving. 'There are opportunities to create and destroy within this piece,' Maloney says. 'But everyone needs to co-ordinate to do it. If there's a room full of people, they're going to need to figure out how to bring things back together.' Funeral for Ashes opens at Festival Printworks Gallery, Galway, on Monday, July 14th OTHER FESTIVAL VISUAL-ART HIGHLIGHTS David Mach: Burning Down the House The Second Homeowner's Nightmare, by David Mach You could say this is the conclusion of a trilogy by David Mach at Galway International Arts Festival, except this will actually be the Scottish artist's fourth Giaf extravaganza. It is, however, his third go at smashing up stuff, following the wrecked yacht, car and caravan, buried in a jagged rip in the gallery floor, for Rock'n'Roll, in 2018; and his exploding Range Rover in The Oligarch's Nightmare , in 2023. This time a holiday cottage is aflame. Struck by a bolt of lightning or burned out by disgruntled locals sick of the disproportionately wealthy's rapacious greed ravening our housing stock? You decide. Festival Gallery, William Street, Galway, July 14th-27th Hazel O'Sullivan: Atomic Atomic, by Hazel O'Sullivan Need your geometric fix after Evie Hone and Mainie Jellett at the National Gallery of Ireland? Hazel O'Sullivan, recipient of a festival Elevate bursary, adds a dose of retrofuturism, a little bit of mythology and a twist of Galway's landscapes. It's a bit like back to the future in sculpture and paint. Outset Gallery, St Augustine Street, July 14th-27th Kat Austen: Not Breaking. This Wave Drowns Hate Not Breaking. This Wave Drowns Hate, by Kat Austen Internationally renowned, Kat Austen creates environments that bring you into other worlds, with a little help from sound, light and AI. This time she's exploring our dying oceans, so expect sculptural lighthouses and projected scenes in which to experience an imagined future where humans and oceans support one another. Bailey Allen Hall, University of Galway, July 14th-27th Eman Mohammed: What Lies Beneath the Rubble One of Eman Mohammed's photographs from What Lies Beneath the Rubble The award-winning Palestinian photojournalist Eman Mohammed has spent her career documenting life under the Israeli occupation. Her powerful photo essays are the result of time exploring, understanding and documenting the complexities of often overlooked stories amid unspeakable carnage. O'Donoghue Centre, University of Galway, July 14th-27th Galway International Arts Festival runs from Saturday, July 12th, until Sunday, July 27th; all exhibitions are free; tickets are required for some talks and associated events; accessibility programmes, including touch tours, audio guides and relaxed hours with dimmed lights and low sounds, are available for selected exhibitions. The festival website has details of locations, timings and dates
Irish Times
an hour ago
- Irish Times
How to bid wisely at auctions: ‘An emotional decision is rarely a wise decision'
Bidding at auctions used to sometimes be like a game of smoke and mirrors, as various parties would feign a lack of interest in certain items until the moment when they decided to pursue something vigorously. The auctioneer needed to be well versed in the various bidding styles as individuals would raise a finger or a catalogue or even touch their ear as a gesture to indicate they were bidding on a certain item. Nowadays, with online auctions to the fore – either live or timed – the bidding game has become a more subdued affair. Watching screens doesn't quite replace the frisson of excitement in a room full of people competing to buy a piece of furniture or jewellery or a painting. 'We find that timed auctions are working extremely well for us,' says Robert Usher of Usher Auctions in Kells, Co Meath. We are getting very positive feedback from long-time auction goers and clients about how the timed sales allow them a lot more ease of bidding, while never missing a lot. We have exponentially increased the number of bidders by having our auction online,' says Robert Usher, of Usher Auctions in Kells, Co Meath. Its timed antique and collectible auction is now live, with bidding ending from 6pm on Monday, July 7th. Moonstruck, a ceramic sculpture by Kells-based sculptor Ann Meldon Hugh (€300-€500) at Usher's timed online auction In a timed auction, each lot has a specific finish time. 'So lot 1 will close at 6pm on Monday, and each lot will finish 15 seconds after that,' says Usher. If you are interested in a piece, you can bid early and leave a maximum bid. If your highest bid at a point when the item is timed down is lower than your maximum bid, you will get the piece for that price. READ MORE 'If the item goes over your maximum bid, you are out of the game. But you will get an email to say that you have been outbid. And at that point, if you are keeping a close check on your email, you can rejoin the bidding by setting another maximum or making a one-off bid.' Alternatively, prospective buyers can wait until the last five minutes before the item is timed out and bid then. 'It gets very busy at this point, but if there are a few bidders, the time is extended by five minutes to allow underbidders to come back in,' says Usher, whose auction includes furniture from Glendalough House in Co Wicklow. The only risk with this approach is that if you are interested in another item very close in the catalogue, you might miss it unless you have put in an early bid on it. The other form of online auction is the live online auction, where the auctioneer is on the rostrum with his/her gavel, proceeding through the lots in the same way, except without a roomful of people bidding. Diamond 46-stone tennis bracelet (€8,000-€12,000) at Matthews Sapphire and diamond cluster set link bracelet (€4,000-€7,000) at Matthews Art Deco diamond round cut bracelet (€20,000-€30,000) at Matthews Diamond pave clutter set bracelet (€12,000-€18,000) at Matthews Damian Matthews, also in Kells, Co Meath, is holding a two-day online auction of jewellery, gold, silver and silver bullion on Sunday, July 6th and Monday, July 7th. As well as a great selection of rings, silver and pocket watches, the auction includes some fine bracelets. These include a diamond 46-stone tennis bracelet (€8,000-€12,000). This simple yet sophisticated bracelet was previously known as a diamond line bracelet or eternity bracelet until tennis champion, Chris Evert, broke hers during the 1978 US Open. Evert paused the game so that she could retrieve the scattered jewels, and since then, the understated yet stylish piece of jewellery has been called a tennis bracelet. As you can imagine, people often do get carried away if they are particularly drawn to a piece of jewellery, but Matthews's advice to potential buyers is to keep their emotions out of the transaction. 'An emotional decision is rarely a wise decision. When bidding at auction, try to dissociate yourself emotionally, otherwise you're playing the auctioneer's game,' he says. 'And at the end of the day, the auctioneer works for the vendor, not the buyer.' He also advises people to bid slowly so as not to make any mistakes. 'Watch the form, listen to what is being said and how many bidders there are,' he says. Lola Hynes from O'Reilly's Auction Rooms on Francis Street, Dublin, says attending an auction in person is still preferable. 'Our live online auctions are open to the public and if you are in the room, you can offer a smaller increment when bidding than the increments programmed into the computer,' she says. 'There is also the human element, as auctioneers like real people in front of them.' Buyers also need to be aware that the hammer price – the amount the piece is sold for at the auction – is not the final price, as auctioneer's fees are then added to the price the buyer pays. Usher says that auctioneers' fees for buying and selling don't vary too much. Generally, for buying, he says they are between 18 per cent and 22 per cent plus VAT, admin, etc. For selling, fees are between 10 per cent and 18 per cent plus VAT and other fees, depending on the auction house. Most auctioneers do however advise people to go see the items in person before an auction, rather than just relying on online catalogues. 'There is a great atmosphere in the auction rooms in the days before an auction. We are there to help answer questions about estimates and reserves [when an item won't be sold below a certain price],' says Usher. He also believes that viewing items beforehand can give people a greater sense of which items might work well together. 'It's about looking at each item, thinking about what it's worth to you. There is no ticker tape for auctions,' says Matthews. , , What did it sell for? Princess Diana's 'caring' dress. Photograph: Joe Maher/Getty Princess Diana's 'caring' dress Estimate $200,000-$300,000 Hammer price $520,000 (€445,000) Auction house Julian's A display including Princess Diana's peach straw archer-style hat by John Boyd. Photograph: Aaron Chown/PA Photos Princess Diana John Boyd straw hat Estimate $20,000-$40,000 Hammer price $26,000 (€22,000) Auction house Julian's Princess Diana Falcon Evening Gown, left. Photograph: Aaron Chown/PA Princess Diana Catherine Walker falcon evening gown Estimate $200,000-$300,000 Hammer price $455,000 (€388,000) Auction house Julian's Venice, the Return of the Bucintoro on Ascension Day, Canaletto. Photograph: Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Venice, the Return of the Bucintoro on Ascension Day, Canaletto Estimate £20m-plus Hammer price £31.9m (€37.2m) Auction house Christie's
Irish Times
4 hours ago
- Irish Times
Black Death, Newgrange and the American Revolution: a virtual trove of Irish history rediscovered
The latest tranche of records from the Virtual Record Treasury of Ireland (VRTI) has 175,000 new documents lost in a fire at the Four Courts in Dublin during the Civil War in 1922. Pieced together from copies of documents lost in the fire from archives around the globe, the treasury was launched three years ago. Some of the archivists involved choose their favourite documents from this release. The Black Death On Tuesday, October 7th, 1348, the exchequer in Dublin abruptly shut down. The Black Death, which had probably reached Ireland in the late summer, had finally overwhelmed ordinary life in the city. READ MORE For the next five weeks, as the disease raged through the population, the clerks did not do any of their usual tasks of taking and making payments on the Government's behalf. Only on November 12th, 1348 did individuals start to come back to the Exchequer and business slowly resumed as the city tried to come to terms with what had happened. The Dublin chronicler, Friar John Clyn, wrote: 'These cities of Dublin and Drogheda were almost destroyed and wasted of inhabitants and men so that in Dublin alone, from the beginning of August right up to Christmas (1348) 14,000 men died.' The rolls say simply 'nulla' – nothing, repeated again and again down the right-hand side. When the clerks came to write up this roll at the end of the financial year in September 1349, writing this section must have been an unwelcome reminder of an all-too-recent terrifying time. – Dr Elizabeth Biggs, research fellow, VRTI Handwritten notes from the Irish House of Commons debate about the American Revolution, now in the Library of Congress in Washington. The American Revolution Why do thousands of pages of Irish parliamentary debates survive in the Library of Congress, Washington, DC? Long after the Act of Union of Great Britain and Ireland ended the existence of the Irish Parliament in 1801, a collection of diaries containing shorthand notes of debates and their transcriptions (pictured above side by side) were purchased by the Library of Congress in 1876. Created by, or for, Henry Cavendish, from 1776-1789, the diaries provide the only first-hand account of the debates of the Irish House of Commons during the period of the American Revolution and Legislative Independence. – Dr Joel Herman, research fellow, VRTI One of the first ever references to Newgrange comes from document dated from the 1690s. Discovery of Newgrange Newgrange , central to our understanding of Ireland's ancient past, was only rediscovered in the 1690s. The Dublin Philosophical Society, embracing new scientific methods, informed the Welsh antiquarian Edward Lhuyd of a mysterious 'cave' in Co Meath. Lhuyd conducted the first archaeological investigation of Newgrange, observing 'barbarous sculptures', cells, a stone cistern, and bones in the chamber. Though a Roman coin was found, Lhuyd doubted Roman origins, citing the tomb's crude design. [ Newgrange tombs not just burial places for elite, new study shows Opens in new window ] He also dismissed Viking involvement, noting the Irish annals placed their arrival after Roman times. Curiously, local legends of pagan rituals suggested a lingering folk memory from prehistoric times. Lhuyd's work, alongside the Dublin Philosophical Society's, signalled a shift toward modern historical inquiry, blending folklore, manuscript research, observation and early scientific reasoning. – Dr Eamon Darcy, Maynooth University A letter from 1661 relates to a proposed meeting of Franciscans in Mayo or Donegal hoping for a more tolerant attitude from Charles II. A plea for tolerance This letter, written in Irish, was discovered on the person of a Neale MacDavid when he was arrested between Donegal Town and Barnesmore Gap in August 1661. Alarmed, the arresting officer struggled to find someone to translate it. When he did, he sent the letter straight to his superiors in Dublin, who forwarded it to London. It is now among the intelligence files in the State Papers Ireland at the National Archives, UK. What had alarmed the authorities? The letter relates to a proposed meeting of Franciscans in Mayo or Donegal. With Oliver Cromwell dead and Charles II now in power, they hoped to reorganise their order under a more tolerant government. The original translation and the enclosing papers all survive. – Dr Neil Johnston, the National Archives, UK A letter from Anne Macartney to her cousin, Sir George Macartney, Chief Secretary in Dublin, about a duel he allegedly fought with Lord Moira, an Irish peer and political opponent. Racism and a duel In December 1769 Anne Macartney wrote to her cousin, Sir George Macartney, Chief Secretary in Dublin, about a duel he allegedly fought with Lord Moira, an Irish peer and political opponent. " . . . I am shocked to death about you. I have just heard you have fought a duel with Lord Moira, and are wounded . . . my God I hoped you had lived too long from the Hottentots to be affected by anything they could utter." Hottentot was a racist label historically applied to the Khoikhoi peoples of southern Africa. Here, Anne Macartney is describing not Africans, but Irish people – she hoped George Macartney had outgrown the influence of the 'native' Irish. Born in Antrim and educated at Trinity College Dublin, George Macartney identified as English. Although tensions ran high between him and Lord Moira, this duel never actually took place. But the rumour reflects the political heat. However, Macartney would fight real duels during his diplomatic career. In the 1780s he fought two duels – one in India and another in London. In both, he was wounded; the second time, seriously. Macartney is remembered for describing the British Empire as one on which 'the sun never sets'. He died in 1806, without children. – Dr Timothy Murtagh, Research Fellow, VRTI This map, produced as part of the 1891 Census, shows the 'rateable valuation' of land across Ireland. Where was the richest farmland? This map, produced as part of the 1891 Census, shows the 'rateable valuation' of land across Ireland. Local taxes were calculated on this assessment of local land values. Landowners in northwest Donegal and Meath paid very different rates. As these local taxes paid for local welfare, the policy ensured that poorer, overcrowded regions fared worst in times of crisis like the Great Famine. This map, from a few decades later, suggests that the basic problem remained. But modern statistics-gathering and printing of strong visuals, such as coloured maps and diagrams in the census report, helped make a case for land reforms in the late 19th and early 20th century. – Dr Ciarán Wallace, co-director, VRTI
