King of towns

STRIKE up the band. A colony once again? There is a monstrous ship heaving with military types. Seafront heaving with awe struck natives. Noisy salutes a mid imperial pomp and acres of red, white and blue fluttering in every crevice. What could it mean but Victoria Regina herself, re incarnate, was back to rule the waves? Undoubtedly, the trappings of one of the world's most powerful war machines twanged the strings of a few imperialist old Dun Laoghaire hearts on Tuesday, morning as the USS JFK sailed into a harbour once known as Kingstown. As for the rest . . . they were up at Sandycove at 7.30 a.m., struggling under the weight of anticipation, children and binoculars. They stuck around long enough to admire the hulk, and by 9 a.m. had over run McDonalds, yodelling God Bless America over hash browns, egg McMuffins and Coke.

Yes siree, Dun Laoghaire's red, white n blue colony again, but not, as Victoria knew it. Budweiser bunting flies a tacky trail through the street lights; dollar exchange rates adorn the windows, USA Today competes for shelf space with the Dun Laoghaire Rathdown News, a Power Ranger struts the seafront with the Pink Panther, Barney the Dinosaur ambols in the park, line dancers strike a pose on Marine Road and Harley Davidsons vroom down the dusty streets.

"Hey, hey, JFK, how many bucks did you spend today?" parodies one bitter old flower child as a needle, sharp shower lashes the streets and whips up enough dust to knock the pristine look off the marines whites.

But the flower child it is fair to say, cut a lonely figure, in his cynicism around Dun Laoghaire this week. All around him, local families vied to "adopt a sailor" and visitors who endured four hour queues to board the ship came away not merely bristling with goodwill in spite of the chaos, they then stormed RTE to berate the media for dropping the odd mildly critical comment.

Out in the bay, as night fell, the JFK lit up, like fairyland and at 10.30 p.m. families with small children were still out strolling, in bustling scenes straight from a Mediterranean holiday brochure.

Exquisitely polite sailors jammed the pubs (open all week till 1 a.m) drank soberly, triggered a lot of giggling and squealing among the flower of Irish womanhood - "I'll teach you Irish, I will I will." "Oh," (imagine American accent) "I don't think I could learn it in just one night," then slept decorously on the pier or brought bonanza bucks to the B&Bs when good old Irish weather blocked return sailings to Big John.

And all the while, Dun Laoghaire folk were pinching themselves; no, it's not a dream. Hey, Blackrock - yes you, you smug gits - we're back. Come see our mighty works and tremble.

Dun Laoghaire is on the up. The JFK is an omen. No one can quite put a finger on when it began, but in recent months, everyone has sensed a turnaround. The sky is alive with cranes, the earth beneath is literally moving and, for the first time in over 20 years, the town's fabric is riddled with optimism. This, says local councillor and resident, Betty Coffey, is no longer Strumpet City. "What you are witnessing," she declares portentously, "is nothing less than the rebirth of Dun Laoghaire."

Betty Coffey is like a woman in love, radiating energy and passion towards a town she adores. Though she had been in favour of the planned Roll on Roll off ferry, she can even find it, within her to congratulate - wholeheartedly - the lobbyists who made it their business to scupper the ferry development, because of the increased traffic through Dun Laoghaire.

For the delectation of the campaigners this morning, the news is that truck traffic in the first quarter of 1996 was down by more than 80 per cent over the same period of (an admittedly exceptionally busy) 1995. In any event, the narrow little streets and Victorian buildings no longer shudder and creak under the weight of 1,000 trucks a week.

MEANWHILE around the town, hanging baskets lend a sweet, come hither look to the brand new Garda station on Corrig Avenue, the good looking new courthouse and post office are up and running, visitors are implored to go take a look at the new ferry terminal.

It's gorgeous, like an airport, and a new, improved version of the old Town Hall (now the County Hall) is taking shape at a cost of £6 million.

Down at the ghostly dereliction of the old Pavilion cinema the most magnificent commercial site in Dublin Bay," says Ms Coffey with typical understatement the news is that the proposed theatre (subject, of much pulling and tugging about its design and purpose) is to get a grant of £1 million.

The most amazing news of all, how ever, is that a leisure/apartment development on the same site may actually go ahead. "We are the party of misfortune, says councillor Jane Dillon Byrne gloomily. Four times we have gone into partnership with the private sector on this site and each time we've been let down." More than 20 years later, it looks as though the jinx may be lifted finally to unveil a bowling alley, skating rink, apartments, some ardently desired parking spaces and the controversial 300 seat theatre.

But whisper it work has still to begin and one must charitably assumed that the disaffected creatures who set both ends of the building alight at Easter were merely trying to get the ball" rolling ... Meanwhile, the hammering, drilling and general mayhem going on in the old Dominican convent site off Lower Georges Street signals that the £20 million Bloomfields shopping centre is a live prospect.

There is a yearning for this, unlike anything else, which when analysed, reveals that what Dun Laoghaire people really, want is the seven screen multiplex cinema planned for the centre. At the moment Dun Laoghaire, people think nothing of the 45 minute journey across to The Square in Tallaght. They applaud the little Forum in Glasthule but they crave the convenience, and occasion of the multiplex experience. It can be as basic as the buckets of fresh popcorn, oozing melted butter: "I just love them, says Lorie Kelly, a native born Dun Laoghaire woman.

But if Lorie Kelly would take a 45 minute journey to Tallaght for a movie, there are many who would make the same journey in the opposite direction for coffee or a drink at Walter's, in Upper Georges Street. On one side, Walter's is a beautiful, dusky pub, on the other is one of the brightest, freshest, smartest cafe/bars in Europe, flooded with light and maple, white woven cushion covers, modern art and great coffee. Owned by the Coughlan brothers (northsiders called Chris and John) and designed (on the cafe side) by Ross Cahill O'Brien, Walter's is a beacon in a dusty main street, a sophisticated refuge from anarchic traffic. It must also have cost several large fortunes to assemble.

This, undoubtedly, is the commercial harbinger of the reborn Dun Laoghaire. If you can imagine Dun Laoghaire's development in terms of a 12 hour cycle, it is now five minutes past 12, says Chris Coughlan. Thus it has a long way to go but the important thing is that the clock has been rewound the hands are moving. He expects to see full fruition in about two or three years' time.

Meanwhile, Eamon Gilmore, the junior Minister for the Marine (and described as "brilliant" even by political opponents) talks confidently of the next phase of development for Dun Laoghaire which he says will be on the leisure side. This includes, plans for a Public marina, and a scheme to introduce vastly improved facilities for existing users.

In spite of the present of four yacht clubs, there is a sense that Dun Laoghaire has hardly begun to exploit its seafront amenity. Await news of advancing plans later in the year. None of this enormous development is happening, of course, without enormous upheaval and not a little controversy.

As well as the obvious construction sites, Dun Laoghaire Rathdown is also engaged in a hugely ambitious, £40 million operation to, bring its water and sewage systems into the 20th century and in the process clean up Dublin Bay.

This involves blasting and tunnelling, downwards through 30 feet of granite in some cases and the resulting discomfiture of householders near the shafts is habitually dismissed many in the town with apparently reasonable responses of the "Well, you can't make omelettes without breaking eggs" variety.

Those responses seem glib enough, however, when confronted by a couple like B&B operators Liam and Mabel Fitzpatrick whose lovely old Victorian house graces the seafront at Crofton Road. One of the shafts - also called a compound was sited directly across the narrow road from their front door late last year. At the same time, double yellow lines appeared outside their front gate.

The net result is that passing trade has died because visitors are unable to make quick stops to check on vacancies, and those who do make it in the front door have frequently been frightened away by the incessant noise of the pump, the crane, the generator and regular booms from the blasting operation. They had just three people staying early, this week, compared to a norm of 13/14 for the month of July.

"Our business is finished, we may have to re mortgage our house to pay our debts", says Liam Fitzpatrick, who has been in ferociously regular contact with council, contractors and solicitors, over the many layered problems wrought by the shaft. He and other residents claim that cracks have appeared in their houses as a result of the blasting, of doors that won't close, of gases escaping into their houses which have not been fully explained and, most of all, of their concerns for the foundations of their homes.

But they were hardly unaware of the upheaval that would issue from such a major project?

Mabel Fitzpatrick produces a map which shows that the shaft was originally planned for the end of Kelly's Avenue, further up the road, where the bulk of the buildings are offices. They are still at a loss as to how it ended up directly outside their door. "People accuse us of selfishness because in three years' time, as a result of all this work, we'll be able to swim in the bay and, have good, clear water - but look at what's happening to us now. Even if we wanted to sell it our house is worth nothing," she says. "Who'd buy it?"

Meanwhile, the object of Betty Coffey's admiration, the Dun Laoghaire Harbour Action Group, is maintaining the vigil, in spite of its famous victory. They are reserving judgment on the traffic situation until they see what happens, this month and next, but meanwhile have concerns about the groundswell created by the massive HSS super ferry and its long term effects on the harbour wall.

They arc also casting a worried eye on what they describe as the rather unique, almost double white wave, created by HSS, as it comes in, resulting in warning notices to swimmers at a number of Would a child or teenager take notice of such signs?

BACK in the town, concerns surface about the viability of a second shopping centre (talk persists of pedestrianising the area between the two shopping centres and "squaring off" that part of the town), about the fact that no landscaping of any description is planned for the Pavilion site (the plan apparently includes filling in, an area over the adjacent DART line to create a civic park about winos and drunkards "sunning themselves" in the back lanes off Mulgrave Street.

As for the drugs problem the only aspect that seems to be exercising locals is the rumoured prospect of a drug treatment centre. Councillor Jane Dillon Byrne, who is also ii member of the Health Board, nips this trenchantly in the bud. There are 100 registered addicts in the area and, she declares, there will not, repeat not, be a drug treatment centre opened in the town. A treatment programme is currently being examined instead, in co operation with GPs in the area.

Eamon Gilmore has a theory that as well as approaching the problem in the conventional way of cracking down, on the suppliers and addressing the demand Dun Laoghaire by its nature is providing its own solution. "It's a town of extended families, there are the classic bases of granny living in the town of Dun Laoghaire, the mammy in Sallynoggin and the daughter in Ballybrack. The family connections are very strong. Dun Laoghaire may be a satellite suburb but it has retained a separate identity. I meet people in Dun Laoghaire who come to Dublin less often than my mother would come to Dublin from Galway.

"This connectedness, I think, is the barrier against the growth of the drug" problem. Ballybrack or Loughlinstown haven't become Ronanstown or Gallenstown. The real story is why things are working here."

Everyone points to the extraordinary situation in the area where deep pockets of poverty and unemployment somehow co exist with the most affluent areas in the entire State often within a few hundred yards of each other, The dividing line, says the Minister, "is between those who believe they can insulate themselves and who are wealthy enough to erect a great big perimeter fence around their dwelling or estate and those who have a sense of neighbourhood and social responsibility.

But the affluence, ironically, is creeping over into formerly working class areas, and in the process undermining the sense of community on which Eamon Gilmore places such emphasis.

Ann Marie Ryan, a childcare worker, was born and bred in Dun Laoghaire. She and her partner, have just bought an apartment in Dublin city but, tellingly, she still keeps an eye on property prices around her native town. "A tiny two bedroom house off Library Road was going recently for £72,000. Seven years ago, you could have got it for and that would have been complete with Weatherglaze. I'd live in Sallynoggin, anywhere all the houses are being bought privately there now. Two years ago, they were, going for £35,000, now some are looking for over £60,000 with stamp duty.

She's not optimistic about finding a home within her reach. But she talks about returning to Dun Laoghaire some day the way some Irish emigrants talk about returning from New York: "In two years, when it comes to family and raising children, I'll definitely want to move back."