O Conaire may move as part of Galway's £2m plan

Padraic O Conaire won't vanish, and neither will the Galway hooker sails. However, Galway's best-known sculptures may be transplanted as part of a millennium project to refurbish the city's Eyre Square.

The draft project, presented to Galway Corporation this week, will cost at least £2 million, according to its designers. It aims to transform the square into a series of plazas on a European theme, and to return the urban space to pedestrians.

Designed by Mitchell and Associates, the Dublin landscape architects, and Muir Associates, consulting engineers, the plan would mean banning traffic from the square's west side and eradicating the "roundabout" it has become. This will help create a link between the pedestrianised shopping streets and the railway station .

Formal landscaping will be replaced by informal wooded areas, including a sculpture garden where the limestone figure of O Conaire, the writer, may be placed. Eamon O'Doherty's rusty brown hooker sails will also be relocated. Visual "clutter" will be removed, and public toilets will be replaced by cubicles. The ESB substation will be placed underground. The overall effect will be to increase space by 62 per cent.

As the architects explained to city councillors on Monday night, the Georgian square has altered radically over the last 35 years, with a major metamorphosis in the 1960s when railings were removed and a more modern design initiated. The square has always been a "traffic circus", but the increased intensity of vehicular movement threatens to swamp the amenity altogether.

The planners undertook an urban analysis and found there was very little retail use on the square, thus limiting the life-cycle to off ice hours. The primary visual clutter is at the northern end, while the paved platform is dominated by the public toilets, the ESB substation and an array of sculpture, statuary, seating and planting. The lower square is "visually calmer" but is "dominated by large-scale pedestrian movement" and "visual leakage" to the south into the small spaces adjoining the Great Southern Hotel.

The analysis does note some positive aspects of the existing design. Ten mature trees along the east and west flanks give the square scale and presence, and help to soften the impact of the strong enclosing terraces. There is also fairly extensive planting of trees at a young-mature stage.

The designers stress that the development of a strategic plan for the square focuses on the conflict between the pedestrian and traffic. They say it is essential to strike a balance between the two. Over-pedestrianisation of a city, such as in Salzburg, Austria, can lead to an "underused and a visually-dead urban landscape".

To compensate for the closure of the western carriageway, they suggest that traffic could adopt a one-way clockwise movement east, using the east square, Prospect Hill, Bothar Breandan O hEithir, and Forster Street. This traffic strategy could be introduced without major disruption to traffic flows, they say.

The draft project is one of a series planned by Galway Corporation to mark the millennium, with the principal project being a city museum. The plan was given a broad welcome by city councillors on Monday and will be put on display in several venues over the coming weeks, according to the City Manager, Mr Joe Gavin.

A public meeting will then be held, which the architects will address, and the formal design will be placed on display for a two-month consultation period before a final decision is taken.

The refurbished square should be finished by the end of 2000, if accepted by the corporation.