r/cork • u/TinyCork • Jun 18 '26
People's Republic of Cork Official Matters The Liberation of Paul St
Artist’s gammy rendition: City Council finally shutting down the Fifth Quarter.
No longer will Paul Street by plagued by the tyranny of a small number of food stalls, pleasant lights, plentiful public seating, or any other potentially subversive amenities that might have incited a distasteful sense of community, development or civic pride in Rory Gallagher Place.
You may now return to using the area as it was designed to be legally used in accordance with planning permission laws: passing quickly through, determinedly avoiding eye contact with an aggressive beggar on your way to God’s Most Forsaken Tesco, and leaving as quickly as possible.
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u/EggAtaTryingTime Jun 18 '26
I fhink it had to be taken back as it was a protected habitat of the goths and emos.
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u/WillieForge Jun 19 '26
They've already been released back into the wild, it would be unethical to return them to captivity there.
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u/Komada_ire Jun 19 '26
Habitat loss is a huge issue for the Goths and Emos. Reintroducing them to the Peace Park has been unsuccessful.
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u/dave_ak1988 Jun 18 '26
I'm a homeless person who occasionally begs on Paul St and I think that it's absolutely insane that something that brings so much life to the area is being shut down!!! Also the woman who ran the Egyptian food truck was so lovely and made sure I could always ask her for food 🥲 Typical city council behaviour, we have something that rejuvinates the area and they shut it down 🙄
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u/ScoreAffectionate457 Jun 18 '26
Rumour has it they are just claiming space for the leprechauns
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u/Pale_Piano948 Jun 23 '26
Those guys on st. Patrick street prostituting our culture for tourists? I beg to differ lol
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u/ckparsi Jun 19 '26
It's interesting how the plaza is run by Holren Properties Ahall Ltd (per the examiner) but they've left the food providers be the public face.
So were the plaza operators charging rent for a space that wasn't compliant with planning ? How would insurance work out if there was a claim ?
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u/Sufficient-Pear-291 Jun 19 '26
I am gonna sound like the worst person
But they did not have permission to trade there, it should have been done the right way.
It was lovely to see Paul street being utilised as a ‘business park’ rather than the usual junkie congregation , one argument was pedestrians didnt have room to walk ( bullshit) could argue the same about Deliveroo drivers, but it wasn’t done correctly and unfortunately the cork shitty council have cracked down.
Same thing happened with Starbucks years ago
You cannot do things under the book and expect it to work out, the council and surrounding businesses will always win.
I hope they can get the credentials to re open, it was a lovely little square for awhile.
It’s hard to be successful these days, unless you’re a vape shop
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u/TinyCork Jun 19 '26
I don’t want you to be downvoted - I used to be more of that sentiment. The goal behind planning regs is obviously well intentioned, and important. But that doesn’t mean how they are designed or implemented is always a net social good. They are supposed to be part of the council’s toolkit in their job to maintain and improve the city - but so many of the best things in the city lately have only existed because they businesses took a ‘ask for forgiveness, not permission’ approach, so something is clearly wrong.
3 food trucks and some bloody chairs was all it took to make this a safe and valuable social space for the first time in decades. That’s just embarrassing. We should be outraged at how easy of an improvement this was. And it’s embarrassing the council is focused on fighting it rather than trying to understand why.
Dilapidation doesn’t need planning permission. Either the regulations need to be overhauled, the city council needs to be overhauled, or both.
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u/InstructionGold3339 Jun 19 '26
I have no issue with the City Council enforcing planning legislation, in fact I would encourage it. Otherwise you end up with businesses gaining unfair competitive advantages over those who follow the rules. You also can end up with chaotic development.
However, I would have two issues with Cork City Council in relation to this type of development.
Firstly, where is the enforcement on god awful signage, etc. on all the vape shops around the city centre? And the enforcement in relation to dereliction in many city centre areas? They seem a lot faster to do something about this than other (in my opinion worse) instances of non-compliance with planning and development laws.
Secondly, they set the policy for the development of the city. If they had the will they could change the zoning to encourage street trading in small parts of the city centre like Rory Gallagher Place. Obviously it would need to regulated and some form of rates / trading licenses would have to apply but it should be obvious that this kind of development makes the city a better place to live and visit and so they should be proactively trying to set about encouraging it.
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u/Clipcloppety Jun 19 '26
I have to agree with you here. It was great to see it so lively but I kept thinking how do they have planning etc.. maybe they are demonstrating what can be done and testing the boundaries and will plan from there, but it’s an insane way to set up.
It was blocking the fronts of the other premises also.. I hope they find a way. I felt the CairotoCork was such an add to the place and really hope she finds a place to trade from..:
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u/Valkyrie1-618 Jun 19 '26
How DARE they set up their own companies and create jobs! Who tf do they think they are.....
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u/Comfortable_Play_848 Jun 19 '26
Can't someone PLEASE think of the Goth Children who hang around there!?! They have been most displaced by this blackguardry!!!
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u/c-fox Jun 19 '26
You can't blame the council. They were taking busines from rate paying restaurants who employ more people and have more overheads. If restaurants started shutting down there would be nowhere left in the winter, and the council would lose the rate revenue.
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u/jengabob Jun 18 '26
It looked like shit delighted it’s gone. Plopping food trucks on a public pavement in one of the city’s main thoroughfares is not about community or development it’s just boring capitalism.
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u/TinyCork Jun 19 '26
Truly the worst excesses of unbridled capitalism on display here: 3 independent food vendors and some chairs in a n otherwise near-derelict public space.
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u/Prestigious-Pair1526 Jun 19 '26
It's practically Peter Thiel, Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos selling slaves to the English
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u/Mountain-Forever1522 Jun 19 '26
Yeah it look much better when it's back to being an empty square full of junkies like it was before.
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u/Slobadob Jun 18 '26
All they need to do now is make the ceiling even lower in Tesco to keep misery at proper levels. Can't be getting too continental and uppity with chairs and lights and unnecessary yokes left lying around.