Whatever temporary measures are put in place, nothing is ever going to do the job like a big solid concrete wall, says Maynooth University’s Peter Thorne.
Beyond North Strand and Fairview, the wide vista of Dublin Bay opens, and the deep blue Irish Sea slaps the concrete border of Clontarf promenade.
And then, there are the sandbags.
They’ve been in place at the beginning stretch of the promenade, across from the shops and other businesses, since 2013 and are “an eyesore”, says Deirdre Nichol, chairperson of the Clontarf Residents Association.
The sandbags were initially a temporary measure, to be taken away when not needed, but have been a constant feature since 2015, said Nichol by phone on Thursday.
Dublin City Council officials meanwhile have repeatedly defended the sandbags.
“The sandbags form a significant flood defence for businesses and residents in the area and must remain in place until more substantial permanent tidal flood barriers can be installed,” wrote the council’s chief executive, Richard Shakespeare, last November.
“We have looked at a large number of alternative options suggested by residents and Councillors but none to date have proved to be feasible,” he said.
He may have been overruled though.
On 26 May, Kevin “Boxer” Moran TD, the minister of state for the Office of Public Works (OPW), visited the site.
He was joined by his Regional Independents Group colleague, TD for Dublin Bay North Barry Heneghan, and independent councillor for Clontarf Kevin Breen.
During the visit – where he also met with members of both the Clontarf Residents Association and Clontarf Business Association – Moran pledged to support “an interim solution rather than sandbags”.
“We’ve looked at three or four options that we’ll put on display here within three months’ time,” Moran said in a social media video posted by Heneghan.
In response to queries about the details of these three or four options, a spokesperson for the OPW said that at the meeting on 26 May, Moran “asked Dublin City Council officials to identify some alternative options to the current sandbags”.
Moran also spoke to the permanent flood defence scheme, which has been the subject of fraught debate and many false starts for well over a decade. “We want to see consultants appointed – the scheme will move on faster,” he said.
The story of the Clontarf flood defences is by now well rehearsed.
Severe tidal flooding in February 2002 triggered plans for a flood defense scheme in the coastal neighbourhood.
Councillors voted against plans in 2011 to construct a 3km long , 1.5m to 2.5m high mound and wall along the Clontarf seafront, after thousands protested.
Council officials and community representatives formed a joint working group in 2013 to have another go at coming up with a better idea and approach for the flood defences. They didn’t manage to agree, though.
Nichol says that users of the Clontarf promenade are still waiting for a solution that satisfies safety concerns, and protects the amenity that draws so many to the area.
While they wait, the sandbags sit there.
The movement is called the “Clontarf Promenade Development & Flood Defence Project” because, Nichol says, it is about more than flood defence. It is also about creating an inviting, public amenity in Clontarf for all, she said.
Nichol says she is hopeful that, given that the OPW and Moran are involved, the project will get the recognition it needs beyond Dublin City Council to allocate funding for flood defence.
“Because funding for flood defence is very different to funding for a public realm initiative,” she says. Those behind the Clontarf Promenade Development & Flood Defence Project want the council to look further afield for more funding.
One of the issues with the budget though has been that the OPW determines what it will give the council to spend on flood defences, based on a cost-benefit analysis that looks at what the damage would be without.
As of March 2019, that figure was €6 million.
Nichol says that the sandbags have had a knock-on effect. People assume now that a new flood wall would be the same height as the current sandbags, she says.
If that were the case, locals would be happy – but it isn’t, she says.
The council has said the sandbags are needed for protection, she says. “But the new wall was going to be twice the height of the sandbags in some places. So, either the sandbags are protecting us from flooding and we do need them, or they're not actually protecting us from flooding.”
Exactly how high any flood defense in Clontarf would have to be is unclear.
In December 2023, a council spokesperson said that they would have to recalculate and rework designs based on updated climate change estimates.
Whatever measures are put in place, nothing is ever going to do the job like a big, solid concrete wall, says Peter Thorne, a professor in physical geography (climate change) at Maynooth University and director of the Irish Climate Analysis and Research UnitS (ICARUS).
There have been “pretty substantial storm surges” which appeared at a low tide or in a neap tide, he says. It is certainly a matter of time until a storm hits in a spring tide, he says.
“Particularly if there's a lot of flow coming down the Liffey. Water that's coming down into Dublin has to go somewhere, and it will go sideways,” he says. “Clontarf is perhaps the location in Dublin most at risk.”
Work on interim measures to replace the current sandbags may prove next to useless, says Thorpe.
If you have a storm surge in the upper 10 percent of the storm surges seen in Dublin, combined with a spring high tide, he says, “you're not going to get any temporary measure to protect you from that”.
Even suggestions of putting sections of thick glass along certain parts of the seafront, he says, would be very risky.
Thorne says that he recognises the difficult balance between scientific reality and electoral support that politicians must strike.
If you buy a house with a view, and someone tells you they’re putting a four-foot wall in front of it, Thorne says, “you’d be pretty annoyed”.
Neither Minister Moran and the OPW nor Deputy Heneghan would divulge what the “three or four” temporary measures are that Moran alluded to on his site visit.
However, says Breen, the independent councillor, it’s “absolutely vital that sandbags are finally removed, while Clontarf’s homes and businesses must continue to be protected from the real risk of flooding”.
He adds that any interim measures must be just that, interim. Another temporary solution can’t become a permanent fixture, as happened with the sandbags for over a decade now, he says.
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They recite schemes that were promised, or piloted, but seem to have gone nowhere. A council spokesperson said similar initiatives still exist.
Online tools allow people to identify others from photos – opening the way for targeted ridicule, doxxing, or worse.
But they appear to lack the necessary power, and are likely moving too late. Manna hopes to start delivering toasties and tacos in the city “by late this summer”.
Grosvenor Lodge is so rundown that the council is looking at adding part of it to its derelict sites register.
