The fatal stabbing of a young man in a fast-food restaurant in O'Connell Street this week - the second violent death this year in the vicinity will be seen by many as yet another milestone in the long decline of Dublin's grandest thoroughfare. In the aftermath of the killing, the Assistant Garda Commissioner, Mr Tom King, found himself at odds with O'Connell Street shopkeepers over the level of crime there.
Mr King said that just over one crime a day was committed on the street; the shopkeepers claimed the rate was many times higher. The discrepancy probably lies in the fact that many shopkeepers, security staff and members of the general public feel that reporting crime has become a waste of time. And even if one accepts Mr King's view that O'Connell Street is not really a dangerous place, but is perceived as such, that in itself is a serious matter for the capital city's main street. It is not acceptable that it should be so tainted.
O'Connell Street's problems go well beyond the rate of street crime. Laid out at the height of Dublin's great 18th-century flowering, this was once among Europe's finest boulevards as a glance at one of Malton's prints will confirm. It is ironic now to recall that the impoverished, newly independent State sedulously rebuilt the street after the ravages of the 1916 Rising and the Civil War; but affluent, modern Ireland has shown less pride in it. As Frank McDonald wrote more than a decade ago in his book The Destruction of Dublin, "dignified and noble facades got scant attention from the developers who descended on the street during the late 1960s and early 1970s . . . the capital's main street was transformed into a honky-tonk freeway, cluttered with fast-food joints, slot machine casinos, ugly modern office blocks, vacant buildings and even the odd derelict site." Despite sporadic attempts at improvement, his description holds true today.
In this newspaper last Saturday it was reported that the Anna Livia monument (alias the "Floozie in the Jacuzzi"), unveiled as part of the Dublin Millennium celebrations of 1988, has become a rendezvous for the drugs trade. The chief executive of Dublin Tourism was quoted as saying: "There is very little for the tourist down there. . ." (Significantly, his organisation relocated across the Liffey to Suffolk Street two years ago, and O'Connell Street has missed out on the regeneration enjoyed by the Grafton Street area and Temple Bar.)
For all that, the broad vista of O'Connell Street is still a sight to gladden the eye on a sunny day or in the weeks before Christmas when its trees are bedecked with lights. Its landmark buildings the GPO, Clerys, the Gresham - are intact. The rash of ugly shopfronts, billboards and signs cannot quite obscure its inherent elegance. Its problems are complex, involving inner-city deprivation, crime, planning, architecture, business, commerce and property interests. But the restoration of O'Connell Street to its deserved splendour and reputation should not be beyond the wit and the will of determined minds in Leinster House and City Hall. There would be few more popular or worthwhile ways for the capital city to greet the new century.