Advertising firm proposes digital advertising screen in Rathmines

Advertising firm Micromedia has applied for planning permission to turn a large billboard on Lower Rathmines Road into a digital LED screen.

This is part of a slow transition across the city from old-style billboards to digital ones, which some councillors have criticised as degrading the public realm.

In this case, Lucid Media, trading as Micromedia, is proposing to replace the existing billboard on the side of the building housing the Spar at 23 Rathmines Road Lower, near the corner with Grove Park.

There's been an advertising billboard at that location since at least 1963, Lucid's planning application says – offering a photograph showing an advert for Player's cigarettes.

The new incarnation, the proposed digital billboard, would face the Leeson Park School of Music. There are homes to the west along Grove Park from its location – as well as to the east, on the other side of Rathmines Road Lower.

The plan for the billboard at 23 Rathmines Road Lower is that it would be 3.2 metres wide, by 5.76 metres high. So that'd be 15 percent smaller than the current billboard at that location.

It would show "static advertisements on-screen, with a change frequency no less than once every 10 seconds", the planning application says.

Micromedia has a network of 220 digital advertising screens nationwide, as well as seven large format digital advertising units in Dublin, according to the planning application.

"We are longtime supporters of music, culture and arts, this background is our lineage," said Micromedia co-founder and managing director Dave Smith, by email, on Tuesday.

"As a result we offer a subsidised rates to the arts as we believe this rich stimulus deserves a strong presence in the city along with more mainstream advertising," he said.

The change to digital will "enable displays to be programmed and updated remotely, removing the need for in-person servicing", the planning application says. This will reduce traffic and noise pollution, it says.

Micromedia is proposing "a 1am – 6am curfew", which it says "will be an improvement on the current 24/7 advertising".

Also, the panel would be "for a temporary period of 5 years only, after which time a fresh grant of planning permission will be required for any continued advertising at this site", its planning application says.

That "gives the council an out if it doesn't work, you know?" said Smith, by phone on Tuesday. "So it's not giving it like long-term presence and it just forces you to also be good and behave, you know?" 

In addition to offering the curfew, and the temporary planning permission, Micromedia is offering to remove another billboard, over at 23 Old Kilmainham Road.

The council's Advertising and Signage Strategy says that "Any new applications for outdoor advertising structures will generally require the removal of existing advertising panels, to rationalise the location and concentration of existing advertising structures."

That strategy divides the city into zones, and says where billboards might be acceptable and where they would not. Rathmines appears to mostly be in Zone 6, "Zone of residential uses where advertising would be visually inappropriate".

However, Rathmines Road Lower appears as Zone 3, "Radial/Orbital route where opportunity exists for advertising in the street & where normal controls would apply".

They had a pre-planning meeting with a representative from the Dublin City Council Planning Department on 22 July and "The proposed development was positively received. Based on initial review it was considered acceptable in principle", the application says.

Objections

However, four people have put in submissions objecting to the proposed change to a digital billboard, since Micromedia put in its planning application on 10 September.

Ciarán McGahon put in a submission on behalf of the community group Reimagine Rathmines, formerly known as the Rathmines Initiative, objecting to the change.

The proposed new LED billboard "would be visually intrusive and out of keeping with the established historic character of the residential area, particularly given its prominent location opposite and adjacent to numerous Victorian and Georgian buildings on the Record of Protected Structures", McGahon writes.

There's already a lot of advertising in the area, McGahon writes. "Granting permission for this proposal would risk establishing a precedent for further illuminated digital advertising in the area, progressively eroding the historic and residential character of Rathmines," he writes.

Another submission, from Tracy Healy, says that "A large, bright and continuously changing display could distract both drivers and pedestrians, creating an unnecessary potential road safety hazard at an already busy crossing point."

And a submission from Philip O'Reilly says that, "This proposal will result in yet another glaring, distracting, blinding and intrusive nuisance into the lives of the citizens of this city and it is something that is not wanted and totally unnecessary."

For its part, Micromedia, in its planning application, says that the new billboard "will have no adverse impact on traffic or pedestrian safety, or the amenity of the surrounding area".

The application includes an illumination study from consultants High Res, which concludes that "The impact of the proposed LED screen in comparison to street-lighting is minimal at 300cd/m2".

"There will be no increase and possible reduction of lighting levels on neighbouring properties due to the implementation of an LED screen in the indicated position following the Brightness Management specified," it says.

Another company, Mistomar Ventures, in 2022 got planning permission to put in a digital advertising billboard at 280 Rathmines Road Lower that one local resident told The Journal at the time was so bright at night that she had to move to another room to sleep.

An Bord Pleanála's direction approving that one said that "The maximum luminance of the advertisement display between dusk and dawn shall not exceed 250 candelas per square metres".

The application from Micromedia for this new LED advertising board at 23 Rathmines Road Lower, proposes that "The proposed display will operate at a maximum luminance of 300 cd/m², with typical operating levels expected to be 50% lower thus the operating levels would be approximately 150cd/m2."

"Additionally we will have a light sensor ensuring appropriate lux levels at all times," Smith said by email on Tuesday.

Tree-cutting

The billboard is on the south side of Grove Park, and across the street on the north side is a stubby dead-looking stump of a tree.

It used to be a big, tall, healthy, tree, and leafy in the summer, partially blocking the view of the billboard from certain angles.

In February 2021, residents in Rathmines complained to the council that it'd been “butchered”, with the branches cut back to stumps. The tree eventually recovered.

But then, in April 2025, it was shorn again. “We are not aware of who carried out these works," a council spokesperson said that month. "This matter has been referred to the Rathmines Garda Station."

A spokesperson for An Garda Síochana said at that time that they received a report of an incident of criminal damage. “Investigations are ongoing at this time.”

In a response to a query sent Tuesday about the status of that investigation, a Garda spokesperson said they would look for information about the case.

Smith, co-founder and managing director of Micromedia, said he'd become familiar with the story of the tree after his company took over the billboard in March 2026.

"Any damage to any kind of tree is absolutely unacceptable," Smith said. "But it also happened prior to our tenancy so I can't really comment on that."

"I feel it's very positive that Micromedia now manage this billboard," he said. "We are very excited about this application and feel it will genuinely be a positive addition to it's locale as has proven to the case with our converted sites to date."