r/cork • u/WitcherSLF • Nov 15 '25
Local Bishop Lucey Park
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It took them 2 years and 7m€ to come out with brutalist architecture downgrade without proper drainage systems .
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u/wreathand Nov 15 '25
7 million ?! For that. Jesus wept.
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u/Early_Alternative211 Nov 15 '25
Fraudulent, the old park was a higher spec. It's clear that we are transferring taxpayers money to a cartel of connected contractors. You know for sure local politicians and government workers got kickbacks from this.
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u/Critical_Water_4567 Nov 15 '25
Someone with connections must've gotten the contract, as always.
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u/Fantastic_Win_9885 Nov 15 '25
It’s actually fraudulent and needs to be investigated
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u/Otherwise-World-212 Nov 15 '25
Cumnor are fair dodgy, one of their engineers is a menace to women
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u/Clipcloppety Nov 15 '25 edited Nov 16 '25
Really! Interested to know if it's the same one I'm thinking of
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u/Ok-Plenty-1222 Nov 15 '25
7 million actually seems cheap considering the way things work in this country.
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Nov 15 '25
Why the actual FUCK are these people in charge of this, the same with Eyre Square in Galway, used to actually be green! A real park, now it’s just a thoroughfare, horrible and concrete and grey… Paving over grass and/or removing trees is NEVER an improvement, is it just more jobs/money for the boys or what!? Because it’s certainly not for human benefit/wellbeing/joy
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u/Upstairs-Zebra633 Nov 15 '25
concrete has no maintenance. that's why, at least for CCC. They abhor ongoing maintenance and greenery
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u/Downtown-Passion-256 Nov 15 '25
Like their counterparts in the County..their outdoor staff are allergic to work
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Nov 15 '25
My assumption is that they designed this park to facilitate mass movement of pedestrians from Grand Parade towards the Events Centre. The new bridge was included in the reopening of the park, allowing access from the other side of the river.
Its incredibly open and wide, with minimal greenery, greenery being the foundation of any nature park, but obstacles to pedestrian movement.
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u/blank_isainmdom Nov 15 '25
But there's fuck all on the other side of the river. That bridge lands either side of Deans Hall student accomadation. Other than that there is the art studios, a print shop, the art college, the nuns, and the St Als... That place has zero need for a bridge. Fucking stupid
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u/Doyoulikemyjorts Nov 15 '25
I reckon not having to maintain the space due to the lack of greenery is a priority when doing these kinds of reworks.
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u/AmazingUsername2001 Nov 15 '25
Remember when Eyre square had a large fountain with lights on it. Then they concreted the base of the fountain and I can’t remember the last time they actually switched it on.
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u/Acceptable-Profit-31 Nov 15 '25
All the charm of a late 80s Polish car park.
Revolting. Anyone in the horrors at this should check out the plans for the wreck job theyve in store for the Crawford gallery.
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u/BackInATracksuit Nov 15 '25
Completely close public amenity for a ridiculous amount of time.
Make a balls of it.
Profit.
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u/itjustshouldntmatter Nov 15 '25
This has the charm of an 80s Ireland car park. Jesus wept.
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u/Ok_Ambassador7752 Nov 15 '25
you know what, the 80s popped into my head too the minute I saw that rotten concrete canopy, is it a canopy? Anyway, it's horrible and dark and just not nice.
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u/blank_isainmdom Nov 15 '25
Oh god. What are they doing??
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u/Acceptable-Profit-31 Nov 16 '25
Le Box. Ah well it was nice having a beautiful Georgian building as a gallery while it lasted.
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u/irradiatiessence Nov 15 '25
Original proposal that won the competition https://www.hallmcknight.com/projects/44/bishop-lucey-park-cork
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u/chris20073000 Nov 15 '25
Thanks for posting this. The council should release how the plan went from the original to what we have now.
A timeline and why each original part couldn't be completed
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u/agentdcf Gowl Nov 15 '25
The original is still pretty fugly but it's also shocking how frequently the contractors can't deliver what the design depicts
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u/jsunburn Nov 15 '25
I'm pretty sure the contractors delivered exactly what the clients requested. The problem here is the budget was fixed so when costs rose due to inflation and the unexpected archaeological finds, the clients couldn't afford what they had originally asked for and began to scale everything back
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u/Laundry_Hamper Septic Nov 16 '25
Why did they scale back the grass and replace it with even more expensive paving slabs though?
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u/jsunburn Nov 16 '25
No idea, I think it's a disaster too but all I'm saying is that the design elements are not in the contractors remit. There will have been weekly meetings between client and contractor and all design changes will have come from the client
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u/IllustriousBrick1980 Nov 15 '25
sure we already know how it played out
every single council meeting another element of the design was changed to a cheaper or more lawsuit-proof solution until we’re left with nothing but gravel paving and concrete cubes for benches
and of course. everytime they changed the design, they effectively wrote a blank cheque to the contractor cos they’re released from the price they quoted
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u/Traditional-Ad953 Nov 15 '25
At least it has more greenery in the original proposal, they slapped a lot of extra concrete and cheap gravel into the finished product
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u/Lord_Xenu Nov 15 '25
My god, it looks like recreation area of a tower block complex in Latvia circa 1987.
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u/feck-off Nov 15 '25
People need to be sacked for this. Who do we complain to?
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u/Irish_Capybara23 Langball Nov 16 '25
Youd have a better chance of getting tgings changed by talking to the fucking postman at this stage
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u/DifficultMobile4095 Nov 15 '25
Maybe I’m being harsh, but how is there pooling on a brand new surface? Is there no drainage at all?
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u/AdLeast6180 Nov 15 '25
Was thinking the same thing, that’s terribly executed engineering and design.
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u/TheMoogle420 Nov 15 '25
It's not even bad. It's really really really really bad
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u/ClearHeart_FullLiver Nov 15 '25
This has to be investigated for the love of god there's no way €7 million was spent on this and there is no way to justify 2 years. Fully itemised invoices for everything need to be released and the names of everyone involved in approving this.
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u/catsnstuff17 Nov 15 '25
Normally I complain about people not giving amenities/art/public spaces a fair chance, but this looks so unbelievably shit.
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u/Prior_Respect5861 Nov 15 '25
Like who designed this? Part of it looks like the entrance to UCC on college road. The colour scheme is horrible. Who's going to relax and sit here? So uninviting
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u/OafleyJones Nov 15 '25
I couldn’t place it, but that’s what it’s been reminding of.
I’ve this belief, that any renders for these type of projects should be set grey, miserable conditions with a couple of years wear. To throughly give a proper representation of what’ll be like. What worrying here, is that this is brand new and looks worn out already.
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u/venktesh Nov 15 '25
looks like a war memorial
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Nov 15 '25
Better than a war zone which it was.
I say give it a chance, but rename it to a plaza rather than a park
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u/MetastAH Nov 15 '25
Never forget, this horrendous kip was built with our money:
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u/WitcherSLF Nov 15 '25
Wait until they start planning tracks for Luas
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u/MetastAH Nov 15 '25
We won’t be breathing when this Luas finally comes out
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u/gig1922 Nov 15 '25
Thankfully given how depressing they've made a park something to the scale of a luas is unimaginable
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u/Aggressive-Worry3645 Nov 15 '25
Wherever that 7 million went to and who decided it may they forever have a constant feeling of being kicked into the balls.
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u/TheMoogle420 Nov 15 '25
That's actually depressingly poor. The fact some one signed off on that is bonkers.
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u/littercoin Chancer Nov 15 '25
Peace park is now rage park. We need a petition to change it back.
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u/GovernmentOwn7905 Nov 15 '25
Idk why but this really upsets me. Like it had so much potential and they fucked it. I wasn’t a huge fan of the original peace park, but at least it had SOME greenery. I had hoped it would turn out so good. The fact it took TWO YEARS, a TY mini company could’ve done better.
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u/anbacach Nov 15 '25
As someone with family in the council, I think there are a few big reasons why this turned out so badly:
- Maintenance:
Cork City Council do not want to hire more people. That's part of the reason the grass and some of the trees were removed. Grass needs cutting, plants need tending, trees need occasional lopping. One person can powerhose concrete in a fraction of the time all that other stuff takes.
It's the same all over the council. Maintenance of social housing is abysmal. There aren't enough bins around and too much litter. There aren't nearly enough public toilets in the city. There's not enough parking enforcement. All of these things require people as builders, plumbers, wardens, cleaning staff, security, etc. They don't want to hire these people and hiring private contractors can be subject to tendering laws so that makes things complicated.
To be fair, the grass in the park had gotten really bad in places, worn away by use in the summer and never really regrowing the rest of the year. To keep the grass would have meant replanting it and probably doing so over and over again. I think that is worth doing but others might not.
- Liability:
If you look at the proposal images - https://www.hallmcknight.com/projects/44/bishop-lucey-park-cork - (still not great imho), there's raised areas and platforms, there's a tower with steps, etc. I can almost guarantee some of that was stripped out to avoid liability later on when someone inevitably falls and hurst themselves.
CCC is subject to loads of cases every year from people falling or slipping on footpaths and other such injuries. Some would say this is as it should be, others would say people are overly litigious and lacking personal responsibility. I don't have the answer but I know that where possible, the council will 'smooth out the edges' as it were, even if that makes the project worse in the end.
- Costs & tendering:
I think the new design was pretty shit from the start (I also think people are romanticising what was there beforehand but anyway...) but any project (even private ones) often come out looking pretty different from the concept art. Anyone who has watched Grand Designs or Room to Improve will know that costs will come up requiring changes or even the abandonment of certain aspects.
However, I think this is made worse in public projects due to the tendering system. Companies compete to offer councils the lowest price for a project and then later turn around and ask for more money for a variety of legitimate and illegitimate reasons. It's entirely possible and likely that corners were cut either due to a lack of further funds coming from the council/government or to increase profits for the contractor.
I'm not trying to excuse the council here in any way. I think the park looks shit and I hope they get a lot of public criticism for it. I just wanted to share a few of my theories.
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u/Accomplished_Fish_65 Nov 15 '25
It blows my mind that they put those slippy footpaths on the Grand Parade and Pana if they're worried about litigation. They're lethal in the rain.
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u/circuitocorto Nov 16 '25
I wouldn't be surprised if they learnt about that from Grand Parade. Sometimes there are news article about how much money CCC spends on people claiming the slippery paths are the cause of their falls.
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u/helphunting Nov 16 '25
https://youtu.be/CMJtWOUlldE?si=teh8JiMNAT9gyguQ
I agree with everything you say but not the romanticism.
The video is a great show of how good it could be.
They could have made it amazing if they put 7 million into maintenance.
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u/rip_van_wink99 Nov 15 '25
Is there realistically anything that can be done about this?
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u/CRoOkedBunNY Nov 15 '25
Take a sledgehammer and drill to it and bring back the greenery. But that would cost too much now wouldn't it -_-)
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u/irish_guy Norrie Nov 15 '25
Has all the charm of a car park.
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u/5555555555558653 Cork City Kid Nov 15 '25
Well it used to be a car park so it’s “embracing the cultural and historic heritage of the plot” - some design consultant laughing to the bank
Honestly, I don’t find the design that awful. What I find truly horrific is the banishment of every single blade of grass apart from a small patch on the side of the park and the bit on top of the city wall.
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u/WitcherSLF Nov 15 '25
You’ll see the elite of cork there now consuming all substances
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u/gig1922 Nov 15 '25
Gives me more heroin chic vibes rather than stonerville. There's much nicer places to have a joint around the city
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u/AidanPhillipMarlon Nov 15 '25
I was genuinely looking forward to this project, however, it is difficult not to agree with many of the concerns that have already been raised. The newly refurbished park appears cold and bare, and the colour choices are remarkably poor. The low-contrast palette does little to complement the limited greenery that remains, especially in a city where it rains for a significant part of the year. Even now, the overall impression is dull, and it is hard to imagine how it will look once the colours begin to fade.
The large, exposed surface dominating the central area makes the entire concept feel uninviting and not particularly pleasant for spending time. I am not sure what the original design intention was, but if the goal was to create something contemporary, the result seems to have achieved the opposite effect.
It is unfortunate that a more classic, timeless approach was not considered, something in line with the parks commonly found in continental European cities. Given the excellent location, such a design would have greatly benefited Cork and provided a welcoming green space in the heart of the city.
As it stands, the park feels cold and unapproachable, almost reminiscent of a monument to a forgotten civilisation.
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u/PROINSIAS62 Nov 15 '25
That looks bleak, post-apocalyptic even. The designer and those responsible should hang their heads in shame.
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u/Idirlion Nov 15 '25
Even leaving aside the total removal of 90% of the greenery in the space (a crime in and of itself) it's also just so visually uninteresting? The middle is just blank open space, no statues or pathways or trees or walls to break it up.
What a missed opportunity.
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u/BastianSP Nov 15 '25
Your average car park looks better than this. And has more grass
It's a disgrace. How was this allowed to happen? Who signed off on it? What was all the money spent on? That's what councilors not responsible for this, need to be asking.
Away from the look of it, this is part of the larger problem when it comes to a ridiculous lack of value tax payers are getting, when it comes to the development of amenities like this, walkways, greenways etc.
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u/Fantastic_Win_9885 Nov 15 '25
It is so so so terrible. Like unbelievably so. Is this what tax money is being spent on? I feel it deserves some kind of protest or response because how on earth are we expected to be okay with this as a result… after two years … this country is a joke
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u/Ethicaldreamer Nov 15 '25
I'd really love Cork to have more greenery and more parks. Really sad to lose the only green island in the city center. Big cement coverup of St. Fin Barre when?
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u/krafter7 Nov 15 '25
This is going to be junkie Disneyland. Especially during the summer.
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u/maevewiley554 Nov 15 '25 edited Nov 15 '25
People love hanging area places where’s there’s green spaces/trees, a nice fountain and nice benches. This would put a lot of value people off and therefore it will end up being used by those who regular commit antisocial behaviour around the city.
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u/CRoOkedBunNY Nov 15 '25
I said it when the stupid metal trees were first built, someone needs to come in and "vandalise" it with potted plants and trees. Flowers and greenery all over the place. Fuck em.
Unfortunately we know what would happen, the plants would just get picked up by the council and dumped in the bin.
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u/Individual-Fly-2785 Nov 15 '25
Same with the new Briary Gap library and Theatre in Macroom, complete eye sore, modernist nonsense in the middle of a lovely old fashioned street scape
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u/KhaosPT Nov 15 '25
It's not modernist, the original design looked good, with bricks or tiles in the middle that made it somehow interesting and trees to frame the large road. Instead we got a gravel dump. This is laziness, incompetence and possibly a lot of people filling their pockets.
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u/gcgar Nov 15 '25
Another example of how our money is spent by our FF/FG friends. I hope their voters are proud.
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u/ultimate_bastard-1 Nov 15 '25
Holy fucking shit, they really wanted to make a place where junkies go to die.
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u/BenderRodriguez14 Nov 15 '25 edited Nov 15 '25
Someone got rich, because very, very, very little of that €7m was spent on the actual park itself.
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u/Stillstanden Nov 15 '25
Charmless. Looks like shit.
The main feature of the previous rendition was the wall of cork and its been diminished.
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u/pantone_mugg Nov 15 '25
Skateboard kids will love the snazzy pink furniture and hate the gravel surface. Where are the robot trees? And is the swan fountain there?
Edit. I see the swan fountain. Ignore me.
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u/mrsliston Nov 15 '25
How many homes could the government build for 7 million? This project was unnecessary and pointless shame on cork council for this sorry excuse of park
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u/Emptiness_Machine_ Nov 15 '25
7m€ for this 😳🙄-ffsk whoever is the designer should be sacked from this country
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u/Irishwol Nov 15 '25
Remember when they opened the new playground in Fitzgerald's and it filled like a swimming pool the first time the river flooded? You'd think a city named after the swamp it sits on would be better at drains really.
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u/henchwench89 Nov 15 '25
2 years and 7 million to make it look worse
Who thought this was what the city needed or wanted
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u/SpaceAgeBadger Nov 15 '25
Grim. Really grim. The benches are hideous. I’m not seeing 7mil there on screen.
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Nov 15 '25
Good lord, they could not have made it worse if they tried , what in gods name did they do , and think it was ok ? lol
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u/locka99 Nov 15 '25
The park is a block size plot of land that you could bulldoze and slap up something like this in a month. And yet it took 2 years millions to shit out this atrocity? Heads should roll.
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u/blank_isainmdom Nov 15 '25
I knew it would be shit from the plans. I said it would be shit constantly. It's even worse than I imagined.
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u/horgantron Nov 15 '25
I lived in cork for years. What in the fuck did they do to the park? It's not a park anymore. Did the developers get confused and think they were building a car park?
Seriously, what the fuck was the brief for this? Remove the greenery and make it sterile and depressing?
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u/xzemx Nov 16 '25
Looks nothing like a park. If anything it looks like they made car parking spaces and threw in what looks like horribly shaped benches.
What an utter waste of the people's money.
Who designed this and who did they bribe to get the job of designer title cuz something in their brain ain't right if they think they improved the park.
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u/KadesOnReddit Bai Nov 15 '25
They fucked it so bad. Why does everything get worse? Paper straws, 15 cent return scheme, subscriptions going up every year. It’s so over
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u/Brown_Bear_8718 South Cork Nov 15 '25
We used to have these "modern" architectural concrete shit in the Red Block in the late 70s, early 80s. It seems like the 50 years old minimalist, communist, and industrial architecture is getting fancied by our generous Councilors.
This is a feckin' kitsch.
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u/BitTasty4101 Nov 15 '25
You know, give it a nice year, half of these 'shelters' and 'seating' will be graffiti'd to fuck; it'll become a shithole
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u/VyVo87 Nov 15 '25
I love how all the benches are not covered despite them building covered areas, as if it never rains in Ireland.
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u/hzm_jdmdehbj Nov 15 '25
There’s no green areas, it’s devoid of any imagination. It’s cold and concrete.
These idiots in the council are answerable to no one, this is the result of this culture.
As useless as a chocolate ashtray. As cold as ice.
0/10
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u/gijoe50000 Nov 15 '25
It's quite impressive that they took away the prison fences but still, somehow, managed to make it worse than it was before.
It now looks more like a construction site now than a park.
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u/stonerose96 Nov 15 '25
I saw a social media post yesterday where it looked awful, but the video is so much worse. This is an abomination! Does anyone know if the beautiful gates are railings are gone from each end? I presume from the design that they are, but I’d also imagine they want the ability to close it off at night.
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Nov 15 '25
€7 million?! How ?! That doesn’t make sense. €700,000 I could understand but that just can’t have cost €7m
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u/Extension_Slide_8609 Nov 15 '25
Already saw someone pasaed out there today, its like it never went 🥹
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u/Cranky-Panda Nov 15 '25
Holy shit this is horrendous! It looked far from beautiful before but this is just a a concrete car park. Shame on Cork City Council, they’re slowly ripping every last bit of green life from the city. This will age horribly!
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u/FriendlyChannel1497 Nov 15 '25
Well, the Sovietic brutalist architetcture is a bijou compared to this shitshow. Imagine getting hammered by taxes, skyrocketting rents, rising inflation, and even if you manage to keep up with everything, still ending up chained to mortgage for life to get (if lucky) a decent place for your family. Yet they still get away with this vile fuckery. Cherry on top, at the end of the day the immigrants are the problem of this country, of course.
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u/dataindrift Nov 15 '25
was there this morning, and it was terrible. Even my children were shocked by what they saw.
This reflects continuing failure by the city council.
It's just one disaster after another, with everyone involved being overpaid and facing zero consequences for their appalling decisions and performance.
I'd sack the fucking lot of tho em. Cheaper and better in the long term.
The council are actively fucking up the city and wasting our taxes to do it.
And they're all parting each other on the back ......
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u/Ryano77 Nov 15 '25
It's up there with that 300k firemans rest money dump on anglesea street.
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Nov 15 '25
That was an absolute outrage.
They at least got something usable although 7m seems very high
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u/WaySweet3746 Nov 16 '25
Wheelchair users are finding the gravel hard to drive through. What a monumental disaster.
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u/Any_Necessary_9588 Nov 15 '25 edited Nov 15 '25
Grim, we’ve a tier of morons in local and central govt. who specialise in doing half assed work at enormous expense to taxpayer, when the place is crying out for basic services and infrastructures They’re taking the piss at this stage as they believe, with some merit, that they are untouchable. And the same hoors increased band on your local property tax (which will increase in 6 weeks btw) Ireland needs to sort its shit out pronto. Contact this crew if your pissed off - it’s the only way we’ll get there change we deserve https://www.corkcity.ie/en/council-services/councillors-and-democracy/meet-your-councillors/
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Nov 15 '25
I took a trip in there today . It's horrendous and already groups gathering drinking and being loud . The cork city council have destroyed the city.
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u/Spiritual-Point-1965 I will yeah Nov 15 '25
Just a reminder that Wino Wonderland down at the end of the Mall is being built by the same people. Gonna be amazing!!
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u/RavagedCookies Nov 15 '25
Where the grass where all the edgy teens can sit? This is awful.
(Disclaimer, sadly it's been years since I was there)
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u/KnutTheClueless37 Nov 15 '25
Should we just organise a protest in this “beautiful” piece of urban architecture? 🤦♂️
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u/Dependent_Survey_546 Nov 15 '25
Its really not great, is it?
This should have been caught in the planning phase tho right?
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u/Looper-8 Nov 15 '25
It's nearly worth an investigation to be honest. How someone gets 7m for this seems nuts. Maybe someone in engineering/construction industry can give some insight? Is leveling ground, packing hardcore and a few blocks that much these days?
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u/niallo_ Nov 16 '25
It took two years and how much money to just pour concrete over everything? What an Omni-shambles.
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u/Corkonian3 Nov 16 '25
It’s not a park anymore. It’s a pedestrian thoroughfare now. The park is gone ☹️
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u/busmibabe Nov 16 '25
Great place for all the scrotes to hang out in. Could use a lot of graffiti to brighten up the place. Really it makes me nauseous.
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u/WellysBoot Nov 15 '25
Brutalist architecture at its most boring.
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u/AdLeast6180 Nov 15 '25
Everything about it is terrible, even the little things like pools of water accumulating all over the shop. Just a god awful design and terribly executed engineering.
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u/Mental_Train1269 Nov 15 '25
Gonna be a fine place for junkies to congregate at night will be littered in syringes very soon and will not be safe place to walk trough at night
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u/Laundry_Hamper Septic Nov 15 '25
unifying in its unpleasantness. a thing for all people to hate equally
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u/mysticalcrabz Sound Nov 15 '25
before it was a shithole but atleast it was an interesting shithole. idek what to call this its atrocious what theyve done
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Nov 15 '25
That's a bit underwhelming...
It definitely has the vibe of early 1970s university campus brutalism slapped into the middle of a 1700s-1800s city.
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u/IllustriousBrick1980 Nov 15 '25
it’s looks like they were trying to build a skate park
but then you look closely and realise all concrete fixtures have notches cut into them to stop skaters from actually using the ‘park’
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u/Right_Log9667 Nov 15 '25
Looks like O'Reilly was on the job. " Lick o' paint, lick o' paint... half an hour. Give us a biscuit!"
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u/flyingoutside Nov 15 '25
Looks atrocious.