Back in the day, O'Connell street was Dublin's grandest boulevard. And yet, for quite some time, it is a street that has struggled to recapture its former identity.
Questions are being raised recently about why Dublin's O'Connell Street isn't able to combat the rise in anti-social behaviour on the road.
The main street in the capital has been seen as a focal point over the years, but in reality, it's more of a ghost-town.
Speaking on The Pat Kenny Show, planning expert and Sunday Independent columnist, Conor Skehan, was asked what is going on and why none of the efforts being made seem to be having an impact.
He explained: "It's not [a very happy place]. It wouldn't be unusual in being that way. I was amused that the Guardian newspaper in the UK yesterday said everybody hates Oxford Street [and yet they're pedestrianising it].
"So there's this continual tension in many, many countries, especially the capital city and particularly the main street, between its role as a kind of a national symbol or a national place and a place that's just trying to get on with the business of making money and keeping businesses going.
"And it tends to create heightened expectations. So we are especially disappointed when a street like that, we feel, lets us down."
One suggestion for the rise in anti-social behaviour on the main street is the social welfare collections in the GPO, but Mr Skehan explained that it's not as simple as that, and there are many factors that are contributing to the street's failings.
Mr Skehan continued: "On a technical basis, it's a very difficult street to deal with. I mean, streets, cities are curiously mechanical things.
"They're like a piece of clockwork and one of the things that will kill a street stone dead is having too little connection.
"So the capitals of, if you want to call it that, of Cork and of Galway are fantastically lively. So Shop Street and Patrick Street are really lively because they've lots and lots of other streets connecting into it.
"The level of what's called urban incident falls off surprisingly quickly. So the areas, say, for instance, between Henry Street and the Parnell Monument, it's a desert and it's a desert made worse by the absence of the Carlton site.
"And similarly, the other areas just don't have enough cutting across it. So that's one of the key problems is a lack of ability of people to move through that.
"That feeds into another problem and the problem is places that have those big gaps, big urban gaps, are natural magnets for antisocial behaviour.
"So if you look at where the actual antisocial behaviour begins, it starts in those types of areas like that."
Another issue is the lack of footfall on the street as people more use it as a means to get somewhere else as there isn't enough to bring them to the street itself.
Gone are the days where there were more cinemas and shops to drive footfall to O'Connell street, and this decrease has led to a "sterilisation of that diversity into a small number of uses".
Also, the plans to try and fix the issue by starting in the middle and radiate out with improvements from there is a "mistake" with the opposite in fact being recommended.
Instead, Mr Skehan suggests efforts need to be made in improving where people begin their journey in the city centre (like exiting the Dart or getting off buses) and work their way into O'Connell Street.
"You can't fix something like O'Connell Street with a gesture, with a good idea, with some kind of a gimmick outside the GPO," Mr Skeehan added.
"We forget we spent an awful lot of money on O'Connell Street down the years in terms of the big do-ups that happened before the Luas went in, in terms of the work outside the GPO.
"It's not short of people putting lipstick on that particular pig."
Main Image: The GPO on O'Connell Street Pic: Sue Heaton / Alamy Stock Photo
