Our Library Park wins Best Public Park in all of Ireland
STUNNING TIME THEMED PARK WINS MAJOR NATIONAL AWARD
THE Library Park in New Ross has been named the best public park in Ireland at a national awards ceremony.
Members of New Ross Municipal District, including park creator district director Eamonn Hore, collected the award on Saturday night at a glitzy Local Authorities Members’ Association ceremony in Dublin.
An Chlog Mór park was officially opened last summer and has received glowing plaudits since, including in national newspapers. Located adjacent to New Ross Library in Barrack Lane, New Ross, the park features an amphitheatre with a gnomon sundial in the form of a fountain pen and ink pot. Last year Templeudigan Park, which was funded by the local community and Wexford Local Development, won the award.
The visually stunning park was once the setting for five derelict apartment blocks and the Kennedy Swimming Pool.
NEW ROSS’S Chlog Mór Library Park has been named the best park in Ireland at a major awards ceremony held in Dublin.
The award was presented to officials from New Ross Municipal District at the Local Authorities’ Members Association (LAMA) awards at the Crowne Plaza Hotel Dublin Airport. The awards were founded to recognise innovative local and national projects in the areas of infrastructure, community development, recreation and social impact initiatives. In 2014 New Ross QuayFront won the ‘Best Civil Engineering Project’ in the country at the awards.
Cllr Oisin O’ Connell, who nominated the Library Park for the award, was thrilled with the win for New Ross. He said: ‘I am absolutely delighted for New Ross. When we first saw the plans, I said it was world class and it has lived up to it. Nothing proves its success as a place of playful recreation, as seeing the young people drawn to it and the library, like a magnet. It is a triumph of the imagination and sets the standard for all of Wexford. Full credit must go to the men and women of Wexford County Council who made this happen.’
The park, which cost around €350,000, features an amphitheatre with a gnomon sundial in the form of a fountain pen and ink pot. The visually stunning park was once the setting for five derelict apartment blocks containing 20 housing units and the old John F Kennedy Memorial Swimming Pool.
Demolition of the pool took place in December 2013.
The vision of New Ross District Director Eamonn Hore, the park design was finalised by Executive Engineer Abraham Dunne and fits in perfectly into the Ireland’s Ancient East story.
Mr Hore said: ‘ These awards show that everything we do in New Ross is quality. It’s good for the town to be up there with the best nationally.’
Time is one of the park’s main themes, with 60 birch trees representing 60 minutes. There are 24 steps in the amphitheatre representing the 24 hours of the day and there are 12 seats representing the months of the year.
The stone at the park was sourced locally from Old Leighlin quarry in County Carlow. Lights illuminate the amphitheatre and sundial at night, while Irish proverbs are etched in the amphitheatre’s middle steps.
Knowledge and learning in the form of Irish myths and monastic writings form thematic cornerstones of the park.
The pen is at 52 degrees so it catches the shadow, giving the right time. Timbre was sourced from a 500-year-old redwood tree cut down at Borris House and Liam O’Neill from south Carlow, whose family have connections to the pool, was the wood turner.
The mythic story of how the Tuatha Dé Dannan gods were driven to live underground is also told and there will be booklets in New Ross Library telling the stories.
Trees form a fundamental part of the park’s story, with birch hazel trees symbolising knowledge being used, along with an oak grove area to the rear and a wishing tree.
An ogham path and a monastic way with allusions to the Book of Kells is another feature.
The youngest ever winner of the Chelsea Garden Show, Mary Reynolds from Barntown, was involved in its design.