A decade ago, the council stripped a playground out of Tyrrelstown. Now some residents want it back.

“There used to be a beautiful park here,” said Olubukola Ashaolu Shopeju, walking through Curragh Hall Green in Tyrrelstown, in a fur hat and black coat on Saturday. 

It had a climbing frame and slide for small kids, and a larger slide, and swings. The playspace had been vibrant, Shopeju said. She’s lived here for 25 years.

But the playground disappeared between April 2015 and June 2016, according to satellite imagery from Google Earth.

Now, the area, which sits overlooked by a circle of two-storey terraced homes, is grass with a path, with a plastic slide and trampoline but the setup is janky and broken. Poles meant to keep the play structure  steady lay beside it.

Local residents are asking for the old playground – or something similar – back, says Shopeju.

Indeed, the neighbourhood needs a playground here, said Fianna Fáil Councillor J.K. Onwumereh, at a meeting of the Blanchardstown-Mulhuddart/ Castleknock/ Ongar Area Committee on 13 January.

He brought a motion asking that the chief executive “urgently consider installing a playground in Curragh Hall Green”, so as to “correct the lack of essential play facility in the area with hundreds of homes”.

Cross-party councillors backed the motion. 

But it isn’t on the council’s agenda to do it, said Gemma Carr, a senior executive parks and landscape officer, at the meeting.

The council audited where in the county was most desperate for playgrounds, said Carr. “Based on that audit, and you remember me presenting that audit, we saw the gaps were in Laurel Lodge, Hazelbury and Hartstown Park.”

So, the council has been progressing playgrounds in those locations.

At the meeting, councillors dwelt on the question of why the playground had been removed in the first place.

The need

Not far from the green, resident Aaditi Bhatia answered the door and offered coffee before sitting down. 

Quickly, her twin two-year old sons, in matching plaid shirts, jumped on her lap.

Bhatia would like to see a local play facility, she says. This space would be great for it, she says.

Like many parents in the area, they put out a bit of their own equipment during the summer, she says.

But there’s no fence to keep little ones from running off the green into the streets around it, so they can’t let the kids play on their own, she says. Cars understandably park around on the narrow street so it would be risky, she says. 

“During the warm days, you see children running around here with nothing to do, walking on the road and everything,” says Shopeju.

Tyrrelstown was one of the youngest and most rapidly growing areas in the country, noted a 2020 community needs assessment by the Tyrrelstown Development Group. That should be taken into account when planning amenities, it said.

In a survey done as part of that needs assessment, 40 percent of respondents reported that there were not enough playgrounds in the area for young people, the report said.

At the meeting, Carr said there are playgrounds within walking distance from Curragh Green. 

There is one 500m to the north, at French Park, about a 10-minute walk (for an adult), according to Google Maps. And major play facilities about 1km to the south at Tyrrelstown Park and Churchfields Park.

It’s unclear if the Curragh Green playground was counted as existing, when the council’s audit was done. It does appear on a council spreadsheet of existing playgrounds.

Bhatia says getting around, by public transport at least, can be difficult in Tyrrelstown. Public transport is poor, she says.

At the meeting, Onwumereh said that he didn’t think the response was good enough. Other play facilities were too far away from these homes, he said. 

“What we are really looking for is an opportunity for young people to play within their estate, if possible, as much as possible. And this facility is there,” he said. “The space is there to provide a play facility.”

Other councillors spoke up in agreement. 

“I think it's indicative of the neglect which Tyrrelstown has suffered since, you know, it was built,” said Solidarity Councillor John Burtchaell. “This is not a well served community by many state agencies.”

Said John Walsh, the Labour Councillor: “In many areas of Dublin 15 there's a major shortage of playgrounds, and the council's been trying to make up that deficit gradually. It's an awful shame.”

Why was it removed?

Fianna Fáil Councillor Tom Kitt said he was fully supportive of the motion, but also conscious that the situation was unusual.

There was a playground but it was removed, he said, reading the council’s written response. Why did that happen?

"It must've been a serious, serious issue with the residents at the time. So I'd like to get more information on that,” said Kitt.

The written response said the council removed it after “requests from residents in the area due to issues relating to vandalism and anti-social behaviour”.

Councillors had asked for that too, said Carr, at the meeting. “And so that was what we did at the time, that was based on their requests." 

Burtchaell said the answer isn’t to close playgrounds, but to find other ways to address problems.

Steve O’Reilly, the head of the Tyrrelstown Residents Association, and a former Fine Gael councillor, said he’s heard both support and opposition to the idea of putting a playground back in at Curragh Hall Green.

"Some may say, ‘Well, look, we're worried about children loitering around it,’ and I think that's why it was removed in the first place," O'Reilly said.

"But the majority of the others would say, ‘Well, you know, if I don't have a playground in my estate where I'm raising my child, where are they supposed to go?’” he said.

“I want them kind of centrally located, being able to play locally with the children they're living with, rather than having to, you know, walk across a road or looking into another estate for that facility, and a lot of people feel that,”

Burtchaell, the Solidarity councillor, said that opposition to a playground is normal, it happens all the time. Things do happen but also complaints don’t mean the facility is without merit, he said.

"For some people, teenagers hanging about in the playground constitutes anti‑social behavior – which it isn't," said Burtchaell later on the phone.

What’s not as normal is taking down a playground, he said, and he thinks it should be reinstated.

Funded by the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme.