ROUTE

Pilgrims, cruaders, the canal, the railway, the luas and a path to the future.

Being a gateway to and from the city since early times, it is a place where routes converge. From the crusaders and pilgrims of the medieval period to the traveling battalions of the British Colonial world. The canal, a huge 18th century infrastructural project in Ireland facilitated the transportation of goods to and from the west, and was later superseded by the development of the railway. The infrastructure of route, underpins all of these journeys, and sometimes provides a footprint for more recent transport infrastructures, as we clearly see with the Luas track on the former canal route to Guinness’ brewery. Students in this group are invited to draw a wider, broader arc both in time and space, tracing these routes from the past, studying our present-day routes and imagining our routes to the future. In this last imagining we may include the Phoenix Park and its role as a green lung, a place of biodiversity, and a social space in the future city.