A tale of two Temple Bars

EVERY part of any city looks and feels one way during the day and an entirely different way in the evening but in no other part of Dublin is the difference as stark as on most weekend nights in the Temple Bar area.

It has all the things it promises during the day a relaxed ambience, impressive new cultural centres, some (but not enough) shops, a huge range of restaurants, coffee shops and bars. During this past summer at least, the place was a pleasant and natural magnet for tourists. But on Friday and Saturday evenings, the atmosphere gets considerably darker.

Take a recent Friday. We had booked the window seat in one of the smart new restaurants in Temple Bar Square. As the evening wore on the scene outside degenerated noticeably possibly made more murky looking by the inadequate street lights. A gang of about 20 teenagers spent the evening sitting on the benches outside doing nothing in particular, just larking about creating a mess. Harmless stuff of course but nerve wracking enough for sober strollers to give them a wide berth.

By midnight an impromptu cider party had broken out on the square's steps and shortly after 1 a.m. gangs of drinkers, including several groups that looked like stag parties, began to spill out of the pubs after a night's pub crawl in the area they were, naturally enough, fairly rowdy. As if to confirm our growing nervousness, a waiter suggested walking us to our taxi "because it's not very safe around here".

The street looked sleazy and unpleasant and it certainly didn't feel like we were in the showcase corner of the capital city or witnessing a sight to be proud of. Or if we were and this was it, then something has gone wrong somewhere.

The recently appointed director of the Temple Bar Gallery and Studios, Norah Norton, is keen to lengthen the gallery's opening hours. She wanted to stay open until 8 p.m. but has opted to close an hour earlier "it's something the heads of the other cultural institutions talk about, a sort of `comfort zone' beyond which we feel it might be unsafe from a security point of view to stay open".

Not exactly unusual given that Temple Bar is in the centre of a capital city but this is supposed to be our purpose built cultural quarter. She says that it seems as if there are two different worlds in Temple Bar with the majority of art workers leaving the area at the end of their working day. At an exhibition opening in another gallery last week the event was marred by the work of a gang of very successful pickpockets the gallery director was told that pickpockets see such events in Temple Bar as easy pickings.

Gardai at Pearse Street confirm that pick pocketing is a problem but that other crimes such as assaults and public order crimes are rare and, according to Superintendent Pat King, "there is no instance of drugs down there". Temple Bar is one of the most policed parts of the city there are two community liaison officers and the ever present cameras which monitor all activity on the major streets.

At weekends there are four foot patrols and mobile patrols. "We've put a lot of resources into the areas and it is safe,"he says, adding that the detection rate is very high. So is drink a problem? "There excessive drinking down there," says King referring to what is at the root of Temple Bar's split personality. On the area's main artery the street that links Westmoreland Street with Parliament Street, which takes ten minutes to walk through, there are eight pubs and three hotels with busy public bars.

An Taisce's report on the area this summer noted that the expansion of pubs in the Temple Bar area involving almost 20 individual projects "has increased the numbers drinking in the quarter to the point that some residents and visitors regard it, at a minimum, uncongenial and at worst threatening". This might be slightly exaggerating the case during the daylight or during week nights but for most weekend nights this summer it has been fairly accurate.

There are now nearly 1,000 residents living in the area's many new apartments a very positive and tangible aspect of urban renewal. Their residents' association is a strong and determined lobby group. It was their action that stopped the drinking in the streets that was such a negative feature of the area in the summer of 1995. Now, according to Lorraine Benson, a member of the association, they are monitoring the development of "super pubs" in the area. Apart from the building of large new pubs, several of the area's original pubs have been greatly enlarged.

YOU can't legislate for how people enjoys themselves," says the managing director of Temple Bar Properties, Laura Magahy, referring to the weekend drinking. She quite reasonably points out that they are learning from experience. The open, rather grim looking Temple Bar Square which is in the heart of the area is being redesigned trees are being planted and the open space will be covered with tables which will be assigned to the restaurants on the square.

"In a sense we had to wait to see how people would use the facilities provided. Temple Bar Square has only been open for six months." Pointing out that their company has no ultimate control over the number or type of pubs in the area, she says that some of the maintenance areas Temple Bar Properties is focusing on are improved street cleaning, better lighting and security.

As yet there are few key retail outlets in the area while several retail units remain empty despite the tax advantages. With licensed premises outnumbering cultural institutions there is a real danger that commercial pressures will further shift the balance and that the main recreational activities on offer will be strictly alcohol related which can hardly be the most positive outcome of such an important and architecturally successful example of bringing life back to the heart of the city.

Temple Bar Renewal, which is an independent body serviced by the Department of the Environment, has commissioned a study from a planning consultant on the mix of usage in the area. The results will be available next month and should make interesting reading.