Councillors push for answers from Waterways Ireland on its plans for the old graving docks

At the east end of the Grand Canal Basin, two boys had climbed through a hole in the graffitied wooden hoardings that wrap around the South Dock Road.

The pair wandered through the overgrown graving docks, a local piece of maritime heritage, which have been closed since the 1960s.

They booted about gravel, and stood at the edge of one of the basins, where for years, the Naomh Éanna ferry deteriorated, before it finally capsized and was scrapped.

Outside the rusted gates into the docks, a sign tells passers-by that this plot of land is owned by Waterways Ireland.

Waterways Ireland is the freehold owner of the graving docks, and until July, the National Assets Management Agency had a leasehold on a portion of the site, said a NAMA spokesperson on Tuesday.

The plot was the last 1 percent of land held by the agency in the Docklands, according to its final quarterly report of 2023.

But NAMA sold its leasehold interest to Waterways Ireland recently, the spokesperson said.

A spokesperson for Waterways Ireland did not respond to queries about its intentions now for the site.

Nobody has been able to get clarity on that from the semi-state body, said Green Party Councillor Claire Byrne on Tuesday.

NAMA has earlier said it had potential for homes and commercial uses, she said.

But they’ve had no updates from Waterways Ireland on its intentions, said Byrne. “It’s been going on for so long, as long as I was a councillor.”

It is urgent that they provide a plan, she says. “Are they going to flip the site for even more money, or are they going to do something themselves?”

How should it be protected?

The graving docks were built in 1896, according to the National Built Heritage Service.

Originally, there were three. But the largest one has been filled in, says Brigid Purcell, a local area representative for People Before Profit. “It’s a monument to working-class Georgian Dublin, and it’s just a slab of concrete.”

She and other locals had been trying to start a campaign to protect the graving docks since before the pandemic, she says.

In July 2023, as the Naomh Éanna was sinking, they gathered less than 100 metres away to discuss how the docks could be protected.

They were concerned that, once the vessel was removed, the docks might end up on the open market, she said.

Or that they would be turned into an office building, Purcell said. “It’s what we’re afraid is going to happen, particularly because it’s a valuable piece of our heritage.”

NAMA, in its 2023 annual report, said the site had potential for both commercial space and 150 apartments.

Commercial space isn’t the way forward, says Byrne, the Green Party councillor. “Existing businesses are struggling down there.”

Housing could be the option though, she said. “The [Land Development Agency] did look at it, but it’s too small and too difficult.”

A spokesperson for the LDA did not comment when asked whether they had looked into repurposing the site.

Brought back into the community

Purcell says there have been loads of ideas floating around. “One was for a lido pool, like an outdoor pool, because a lot of kids jump in the canal and it might be a safer swimming facility.”

Alan Robinson, CEO of the Docklands Business Forum, reimagined the three different docks with three different uses.

The smallest could again be used to mend boats, he wrote in a paper for the forum in 2012. The middle dock could be a children’s play area, the paper says, while the largest ought to be excavated and converted into an amphitheatre.

That area was derelict for at least a decade when he wrote that paper, Robinson said on Friday. “Now, it’s been lying derelict for more than twenty years.”

But while the forum engaged with Waterways Ireland at the time, it didn’t seem to spark much interest, he says.

The docks should be restored and repurposed, and if they were, it wouldn’t rule out some of what NAMA suggested, he says. “The northern tip of the site is not an archaeologically significant area, and it could be used to build a tall building.”

Fundamentally, it should be honoured as a local feat of engineering, he says. “This is capped limestone and granite, hand carved by men on the site when the Grand Canal was built.”

It is big enough for something like an amphitheatre, he says, noting that developer Harry Crosbie proposed to Waterways Ireland that he build a music venue on the site last year. “He believes it’s possible.

Something needs to happen soon, before they decay further, he says. “The small and middle ones have deteriorated very significantly. A lot of the stone has fallen off. It’s just shocking, what’s happened.”

No more offices

On Monday, Byrne put forward a motion at the council’s South East Area Committee, asking that they write to Waterways Ireland and find out what their current plans are.

Waterways Ireland should consider a temporary, or “meanwhile” use for the site during the summer, because locals are waiting for progress on Chocolate Park on Benson Street, her motion said.

The docks are zoned for homes, commercial and community uses in the current strategic development zone, Byrne said at the meeting. “I can’t see any economic case for a commercial development on this site, like we have a dearth of vacant office space in that area.”

“I cannot see how we can justify any more offices in that area,” she said.

Waterways Ireland seems to have swung back and forth with its plans. “It’s gone from they’re going to sell it to they’re going to develop it themselves to go back then to selling it, because they can’t develop it yet again,” said Byrne.

It is a semi-state body dealing with state lands, she said. “And we shouldn’t be supporting the sale of state land in a housing crisis and a green space crisis by a semi-state organisation.”

Byrne’s motion was agreed.

A spokesperson for Dublin City Council said on Monday that any future plans for the graving docks are a matter for Waterways Ireland.

The council has not considered buying the site, the spokesperson said, but they would be happy to engage with Waterways Ireland to discuss future plans.