Dublin

Dublin, the capital city, is located on the east coast of Ireland, on both sides of the River Liffey along a wide sweeping bay with mountains to the south that shelter it from the prevailing southwesterly winds. This situation ensures low annual precipitation (averaging 750 millimeters) but can exacerbate problems of air quality. Growth has accelerated since the mid-1990s and the population of the built-up area is approximately one million, with another half million in the hinterland. Dublin is a primate city, that is, a city which dominates the urban system, in that it has five times the population of Cork, the second largest city in the Republic. The city is low density: Over 85 percent of housing dates from the twentieth century, and most dwellings are one-family, three- or four-bedroom houses. Apartments in the central area have become popular with young professionals only since the 1990s. In 1991, 75 percent of households were homeowners and only 15 percent occupied public housing.

Dublin is the center of government administration and the location of most of the corporate headquarters in Ireland. Three out of four workers are employed in the service sector by 37,000 service companies. The most important sectors are business and financial services, information technology, and public administration. There are some 1,300 manufacturing companies with concentrations in electronics and engineering, food, drink, tobacco, and paper and printing. Companies are generally small; only forty employ more than 1,000 people and about 200 companies have 200 or more workers. There are over 800 overseas companies, including some 350 U.S. companies, mainly in software, electronics, and financial services. Over 40,000 people are now employed in tourism. The importance of this industry has grown steadily, and the city is one of the most popular city destinations in Europe, attracting 4.4 million visitors annually.

Since the mid-1980s government-supported programs of urban renewal have eliminated much inner-city blight and attracted people back to the city center. The docklands have been redeveloped into an international financial services center, and there has been significant investment in the development of the city's tourism industry. The city center is low-rise, with few buildings over ten stories. High-rise buildings will be permitted in the future in specifically designated areas. Issues of concern to the city authorities include managing traffic (particularly, reducing the use of private cars for commuting), limiting urban sprawl, and managing waste disposal.

THE HISTORY OF THE CITY

In Celtic times there was an important ford on the Liffey, and this may have supported a small settlement. There is also evidence of a monastic establishment. In the ninth century Vikings established a raiding base along the river, and by the tenth century Dublin had developed into an important Viking trading town. It passed into the hands of the Anglo-Normans in the late twelfth century and became the center of the feudal lordship of Ireland. By 1610, the date of the earliest surviving map, Dublin was a small walled town (approximately 12 hectares) on the south bank of the Liffey with substantial suburbs on both sides of the river. The combined population of the town and suburbs is estimated to have been 10,000, with 3,800 within the walls. Little remains of this city today, with the exception of two cathedrals, Dublin Castle, and elements of the street plan.

Dublin flowered in the eighteenth century as both city authorities and private speculators developed the city beyond the medieval walls. A Wide Streets Commission established in 1757 oversaw development and acted as a planning authority for almost a century. The city was provided with wide, straight streets, residential squares, and impressive public buildings—the Four Courts, Custom House, and Parliament buildings—in a style greatly influenced by contemporary European ideas. By 1790 the city's elegance and charm was widely admired in Europe.

In the nineteenth century a number of circumstances combined to produce serious social problems. In the years after 1801, following the implementation of the Act of Union, the economy of the city suffered as many wealthy citizens moved to London. More importantly, the better-off moved in large numbers to legally independent townships just outside the municipal boundary, thus reducing the tax base of the city. Two townships south of the city, Pembroke and Rathmines, became particularly important as higher-status enclaves. At the same time many people migrated from the countryside to the city, fleeing abject poverty and sometimes famine. They found themselves in a city without sufficient labor-intensive industry to absorb them productively. By 1851 the city's population had risen to 258,000 from 182,000 (in 1800), and there were problems of public health and housing of such intensity that it was well into the twentieth century before they were satisfactorily addressed. Nonetheless, Dublin continued to function as an important regional center, many infrastructural improvements were undertaken, and the better-off continued to come to the city for business and recreation. The municipal authority, Dublin Corporation, was reformed under the Municipal Corporations (Ireland) Act of 1840, and control quickly passes into the hands of the national politicians. Tension resulted between the Corporation and the British and unionist establishment, which continued until Irish independence. This manifested itself in many ways—for example, in arguments over the naming and placement of civic monuments and in the failure of the Corporation to win approval for the absorption of the Pembroke and Rathmines townships into the city.

The suburbs grew dramatically during the twentieth century. The southeastern sector, the location of the most successful nineteenth-century townships, expanded and retained its high social status. Extensive programs of social housing from the mid-1920s onward also produced large suburban developments. In the south city these were mainly to the west, creating a west/east social gradient. However, north of the Liffey, the social geography of the city did not develop such a clear-cut pattern, and areas of different social status are smaller and less spatially differentiated. Until recently, the trend in Dublin was towards suburban living, and most of the inner city experienced population decline. Industry also moved from the increasingly congested central areas to cheaper and more accessible sites in suburban industrial estates and business parks. Nonetheless most employment continues to be located in the city center, and the lack of an efficient public transport system together with increased car ownership has made commuting more time consuming. As a consequence, new housing developments in older and more central suburban and inner city areas have proved very popular since the 1990s.

For most of the twentieth century, Dublin grew without a strategic plan and with a fragmented system of local government. There was no real attempt to manage change until the 1960s when, following a state-sponsored strategic review, the Myles Wright Report, it was decided to concentrate growth into new towns on the western edge. Attempts to continue strategic planning in the 1980s and 1990s came to nothing, but the Irish government intends that urban growth in the twenty-first century will be managed in the context of a national and regional strategy.

SEE ALSO Belfast; Cork; Landscape and Settlement; Towns and Villages

Bibliography

Brady, Joseph, and Anngret Simms, eds. Dublin through Space and Time. 2001.

Clarke, Harold B., ed. Medieval Dublin: The Making of a Metropolis. 1990.

Daly, Mary E. Dublin, the Deposed Capital: A Social and Economic History, 1850–1900. 1984.

de Courcy, John W. The Liffey in Dublin. 1996.

MacLaren, Andrew. Dublin: The Shaping of a Capital. 1993.

Pearson, Peter. The Heart of Dublin. 2000.

Prunty, Jacinta. Dublin Slums, 1800–1925: A Study in Urban Geography. 1998.

Joseph Brady