'Heritage Streets Alive 2015' Works
A transformed Church Lane, Letterkenny, County Donegal, Ireland. Photo: Mary Kerrigan
It was a pure delight to hear Donnan Harvey, Secretary to the Cathedral Quarter Committee in Letterkenny, County Donegal, and Kyle Thompson, Director at New Gate Arts Centre, share their respective work at Church Lane and the Fountain Estate, Derry~Londonderry.
Both were speaking at the Derelict in Donegal and Beyond conference held on Friday 22nd July 2022 - an event organised by the Cathedral Quarter Committee and Tidy Towns in Letterkenny.
It's Ireland’s first such gathering - although the fact we need something like this is no cause for celebration.
Some pressing challenges:
The Republic of Ireland 2022 census reveals 166,752 vacant homes. Reportedly this figure does not include all of the nation's many derelict houses.
As things stand #derelictireland campaigners Dr Frank O'Connor and Jude Sherry have identified as many as 700 derelict buildings within a 2km radius in Cork city.
With 10,049 in emergency accommodation in April 2022 the country’s homelessness list is back to pre-pandemic levels.
Add to that in the northwest of the country as many as 5,000 homes are crumbling due to a disproportionate percentage of mica in their blockwork - to the extent most need to be rebuilt.
All this in a country suffering an unprecedented and serious housing shortage and an influx of traumatised and war weary refugees from Ukraine and other places too.
Yet travel through any small to medium sized Irish town today, especially in the west, and you will find house after house empty, boarded up and/or in various states of dereliction.
What are the implications?
Old Irish town centres gradually emptying of the people who once lived there, are crumbling - nothing to do with mica.
We are at high risk of losing, forever, our old Irish towns and the rich vibrant community life they once hosted.
The highest price of all - losing our sense of belonging, in place and community.
What might work to turn this around?
Speaking at Friday’s conference Colm Murray, Architecture Officer at the Heritage Council of Ireland acknowledged that the Heritage Streets Alive 2015 process works.
Music to my ears.
Super stoked, in fact.
Back in the spring of 2015, arising out of my deep concern about increasing emptiness and creeping dereliction in three streets - two in Derry~Londonderry: Chamberlain Street and Fountain Street; and one in Letterkenny at Church Lane, I convened and facilitated a new engagement, empowerment and envisioning process: Heritage Streets Alive.
From a standing start, inviting the communities of all three streets - past and present - into a series of extraordinary conversations all kinds of people jumped in over the three months period.
Our weeks getting to know each other and working together culminated in breathtaking, live envisioning performances that presented, in each street, new futures as if they already existed.
Each in very different ways was completely moving - jam packed full of belonging, delight and aliveness.
The proof of this particular pudding is in the eating.
Today 7 two up, two down houses in Letterkenny's Church Lane have been repaired, to best conservation practice standards, funded by the Heritage Council of Ireland through the Historic Towns Initiative, supplemented by Donegal County Council and private investment.
Back in 2015 the Historic Towns Initiative did not exist. By March 2022 a total of 13 historic towns were sharing €1.75M allocated through the programme.
Back in 2015 windows at No 2 Church Lane were falling into the street. Putting his money where his mouth is local man Lee Gooch bought and brought this wee house back from the brink.
Now repaired from top to bottom, inside and out, it is today, home to a young professional living right around the corner from every amenity imaginable.
In Derry's Chamberlain Street an old, decaying stone house - the only listed building in this part of the Bogside inside the Historic Conservation Area - that had languished for nigh on 30 years, is repaired from top to bottom today.
In the city's Fountain Estate a vacant former printer's workshop is now home to a thriving New Gate Arts Centre. A significant allocation of government funding from the Northern Ireland Executive is making possible its expansion into a large gap site immediately adjacent. Right beside that two empty three storey houses have been bought all ready for repair to provide temporary accommodation for visiting artists and performers.
Transformation in each and every case.
Seeing the effectiveness of the Heritage Streets Alive process I'd absolutely LOVE to build on its measurable success together.
If you’re interested creating dynamic change in your street or town and want to learn more about the Heritage Streets Alive 2015 process I invite you to DM me here.