When the council’s Markievicz leisure centre moves to Irishtown, it’ll leave a pool-sized hole in town

While a light rain fell over Luke Street, an automated voice boomed down from Tara Street station, saying the train bound for Hazelhatch was approaching Platform 1.

Below the station, just after 2.30pm on Tuesday afternoon, a woman and a teenage girl rushed into the Markievicz Sports and Leisure Centre with their coats pulled over their heads to avoid getting soaked.

Inside, there were more than a dozen people working out in the windows. Mostly, they were men, lifting dumbbells, or panting as they used the treadmills and rowing machines.

Its proximity to the train station makes a great place for Darren Leathley to go swimming, he said. “I live out in Raheny, and I can get on the Dart, and in 15 minutes with a two minute walk, I’m at the reception.”

The centre, however, is slated for demolition to make way for Transport Infrastructure Ireland to build a Metrolink stop at nearby Tara Street.

To replace the sports facility, Dublin City Council is about to apply for planning permission to demolish an existing sports facility out in Irishtown, and rebuild it as a state-of-the-art centre.

But, the new centre in Irishtown, which will also be known as the Markievicz Centre, or Ionad Markievicz, is going to prove challenging for some of the regular users of the Townsend Street facility, as the council intends to move the swimming pool 2.5 kilometres east.

A far-reaching impact

Moving the Markievicz centre from Dublin 2 to Dublin 4 is going to leave a dent in the Pearse Street and south-inner city area, says independent councillor Mannix Flynn. 

“One neighbourhood and one community will be completely stripped of an asset, and be told you have to go down to Irishtown to avail of that,” Flynn said.

But, the impact goes beyond the D2 area, because most of the users don’t live in that postcode.

At the South East Area Committee meeting on 9 March, Green Party Councillor Claire Byrne requested that the council’s chief executive, Richard Shakespeare, provide a breakdown of where its current members live.

According to the reply, 24 percent of the centre’s members live in D1, 14 percent in D2, 11 percent in D7, and 8 percent each in D3 and D8.

Although the centre is on the south side of the Liffey, 60 percent of its members live on the northside – some as far afield as D15 and D17, according to the reply.

Leathley, who lives in Raheny, usually goes to the Markievicz centre because the options on the north side are less than ideal, he says. “Like, the other Dublin City Council pools and sports and fitness centres are a bit out of the way.”

He has used the council facilities in Ballymun and Finglas a handful of times, he says. “It’s probably, like maybe 20 minutes to drive to Ballymun, and then there’s the issue of parking there.”

His daughter would often attend swimming lessons over in Coolock, he says. But the council closed that after Storm Darragh damaged its roof in December 2024 – and it seems unlikely ever to reopen. “It’s like, that whole north-eastern section in Dublin is lacking in these facilities.”

While Raheny is near the border with Fingal, a sports audit published by Fingal County Council in April 2025 found that most of the county’s 10 swimming pools are not that well positioned to serve people living in south-eastern Fingal/northeastern Dublin city.

Eight of Fingal’s pools are in Dublin 15 and Swords, and then there’s one in Malahide and one in Portmarnock. There’s also Trinity Sports and Leisure Centre in Clongriffin, in the Dublin City Council area, the audit says.

Overall, the audit says people living closer to the city in Belcamp and Balgriffin require improved access to pools.

When asked how the council would address the loss of swimming facilities for those who are unable to use the new Markievicz centre in Irishtown, a spokesperson said the council’s current sports plan for 2024 to 2029 includes an infrastructure pillar. 

“This document will drive sports provision across the city over the lifetime of the plan,” the Dublin City Council spokesperson said.

Plans in motion

The council is getting ready to lodge a Part 8 planning application for the new Irishtown centre, Don Daly, a project manager for the council’s Culture Community, Leisure and Area Services section, said at the South East Area Committee meeting on 9 March.

The Part 8 planning process requires the council to apply to itself for permission, and Daly said the executive expects to bring plans for the new leisure centre before the full council in September.

This proposed development would consist of a 25-metre six-lane swimming pool, a learners’ pool, a 100-station gym, three studios, changing rooms, and staff accommodation, according to a council report provided to members of the committee on 9 March. 

Area councillors were told, back in April 2025, that the project is estimated to cost €43 million.

Since those plans were presented to the committee, the council carried out a survey between May and June 2025, which collected more than 370 submissions, according to the council’s consultation page.

“All generally, very positive,” Daly said at the area committee meeting earlier this month.

A spokesperson for the council said on Monday that 30 percent of those respondents currently use the Markievicz Sports and Fitness Centre.

Of those users, 62 percent said that they would continue to use the relocated facilities in Irishtown, the spokesperson said.

The planned Irishtown leisure centre is an exciting development, Labour Councillor Dermot Lacey said at the meeting. “It’s going to happen, one of the positive outcomes of Metrolink. I support it.”

It is terrific that the council is going to build an exemplary sports campus, said Flynn, the independent councillor. “What I would really like to see, we’ve mentioned this before, is that the name Markievicz pool would remain on the pool.”

This would honour the revolutionary figure Countess Constance Markievicz, he said. “It’d be a shame to lose the name.”

Daly confirmed that the new centre would retain that name.

All going to plan, construction is set to begin early in 2027, Daly said. “And then to be completed by quarter three of 2028.”

It was important to keep in mind that, with the Glass Bottle strategic development zone set to bring in 3,500 homes, there is going to be an influx of people moving into the area over the coming years, Flynn said. “Is there room for further expansion at this particular site?”

That was factored into the proposal for the new leisure centre, Daly said. “The gym is going to be the biggest gym the city council runs.”

There is some room in the design to potentially provide a sports hall, he says. “But if you put a sports hall in, you’re gonna end up losing some of the five-a-side pitches. That’s a decision that needs to be made down the line.”

But, because there are already a lot of sporting facilities in the area, there won’t be enough space on the site to easily include such a hall, he said. “It will be a great sporting hub. You’ve got the eleven-a-side pitch as well. But one of the reasons that site was picked was because of the increase in population.”

Leathley, who was at the current incarnation of the Markievicz centre, on Luke Street, on Tuesday, said he isn’t sure yet if he’ll be able to go to the relocated Markievicz pool, out in Irishtown. 

“Probably, it’s dependent on how convenient it is to get there. It’s removing the convenience of walking from the Dart station,” he said.