SIGN IN THE CROPPIES ACRE PUBLIC PARK THIS IS A KNOWN SPOT FOR ROUGH SLEEPERS
This sign was recently placed in Croppies Acre near Heuston Station, which is a known spot for rough sleepers.
This park has been closed for extended periods because of anti-social behaviour and then a few years ago it reopened as an always open park so I was a bit surprised to see a notice that one was not allowed within the park after dark.
Although many reports have highlighted the problem of anti-social behaviour in Dublin’s parks, many public representatives believe that more should be done to tackle the root causes of this rather than simply directing people away from frequenting parks.
Within the park there is a memorial and a plaque which refers to the “Croppy’s Acre” but the official name is the “Croppies Acre 1798 Memorial Park”. This park on the north side of the Liffey is considered to be the burial site of so-called “croppies” who took part in the United Irishmen Rebellion however recent investigations indicate that the mass burial may have been at a different location.
The name ‘Croppy’ was used in Ireland in the 1790s and was a reference to the rebels who closely cropped their hair to mimic the French Revolutionaries of the period who cut their hair in contrast to the aristocracy who wore powdered wigs.
Historically the Croppies Acre was located on land under common pasturage and part of what was termed ‘Oxmantown Green’.
In the 17th century, a portion was later presented to the Viceroy, the Duke of Ormond to build a palace, however this was never built and the site was sold to the City Authorities for a Barracks. Built in 1704, it served as a military base for 250 years, it was formally the Royal Barracks and later Collins Barracks.
The Esplanade where the Croppies Acre is located today was fully constructed by the 1850s, complete with boundary walls and ornate railings. During the Great Famine, the Esplanade was the site of a food kitchen. By the 1900s, the land was levelled to form two football pitches for the military. In 1997, the Decorative Arts Section of the National Museum was opened in Collins Barracks and the Memorial Park was subsequently designed and laid out in 1998.
A SECTION OF THE LAGAN TOWPATH BELFAST CITY – MAY 2015
When I use the Lagan Towpath I find many of the cyclists to be over aggressive towards pedestrians and I did read in a local newspaper and online that this is/was a known issue.
In May 2015 I started at Stranmillis in Belfast and walked to the Odyssey complex, where the River Lagan enters Belfast Lough. Near the exit to the Gasworks a young man tried to steal my camera but fortunately he was not successful.
I should mention that over a period of of ten years visiting Belfast this is the only such incident that I have encountered. Shortly afterwards two police officers approached me to enquire if I had seen someone matching the identity of the person in question. Apparently he would offer to take photographs using the tourist’s camera or phone and then run away with the camera. Their advise was that, in general, the Lagan Towpath was very safe but that one needed to be alert as is always the case.
There is no doubting the fact that low-level anti-social activity is an ongoing problem in Belfast and that is a great pity because there are some really excellent public facilities provided by Belfast City Council.
Every time I am in Belfast I take a walk along the Lagan Towpath because I really like it. However it does appear to suffer from a high level of anti-social activity and often the street furniture and public art installations [especially ‘Weights 2000’ by Mike Hogg] show signs of unnecessary and unsightly damage and destruction.
But to be fair, when I visited in May 2017, there was much less evidence of damage due to vandalism and the Mike Hogg installation and been repaired. In May 2018 I could not decided if the installation had been relocated to make way for a new building but the installation was in reasonable condition.
When I visited in March 2019 the installation was well located but two of the elements were damaged and all had attracted the attention of taggers.
You must be logged in to post a comment.