Una Mullally: O’Connell Street was always more than a street. Can it start to live up to its potential?

The Wild Atlantic Way remains one of the great tourist marketing triumphs of our time. The smartest thing about it is that it reframed what was already in existence. The production value is the coastal scenery. All it needed was some signposting, a map and a brand that is instantly graspable. At the time, it felt less like a marketing success and more like a light bulb moment. While tourist bodies have attempted to capitalise on Ireland’s heritage and traditions of Samhain, there is something incoherent about the approach. This year marks the second year of Fáilte Ireland, Tourism Ireland and Tourism Northern Ireland’s Home of Halloween programme. The Derry Halloween Festival feeds into this, now in its 40th year. There’s also the Púca Festival in Meath, although it’s hard to discern how some of the programming – top-heavy with concerts – fits thematically with the celebration. A Samhain procession, the lighting of fires, and some events that speak to ancestral traditions are more on point. One of the issues with what is being rolled out (and sold to tourists) under the Home of Halloween banner is that Dublin city centre doesn’t seem to feature. But there is an obvious opportunity to bring people into the city on Halloween as the nights draw darker, and offer them things to do. READ MOREFor children in the capital and its suburbs, Halloween is about staying within their own immediate network of streets, flats or estates. It is a hyperlocal, DIY event. There are some small community festivals, such as Otherworld in Ballymun and Darndale After Dark. But the most obvious signs of Halloween around the capital are about what not to do: posters promoting safety, redeclaring fireworks illegal, and so on. One effort this year is the chunkily named Trick or Treat Main Street Market on a part of O’Connell Street, which is a small indication of an attempt to conjure the spirit of Samhain in the city. But this seemingly inocuous and small gesture presents us with a very interesting question: what would O’Connell Street be like if it was used differently? How O’Connell Street and the surrounding area will begin to change as part of the Dublin City Taskforce’s remit to “reinvigorate” this part of the city, and ongoing projects which dovetail with the taskforce’s aims, is a live conversation. It raises the old question of how to eat an elephant. The answer is: one bite at a time. Beyond the big-ticket items such as the GPO, and the progress around Parnell Street – with a new city library and the refurbishment of the Hugh Lane Gallery – there are other, perhaps smaller, signs that O’Connell Street might be on the cusp of better things. Last week, it was reported that a new restaurant planned for what used to be Ulster Bank’s headquarters on the street will be barred from selling takeaway food. This is sending a signal: no more new fast food places or even new takeaway restaurants on this street. This is significant at a time when so-called “landmark” developments, such as Central Plaza, are fast-food-heavy. Meanwhile, there are more lofty artistic ambitions unfolding in the area. Nearby on Abbey Street, a former Methodist church is to become the headquarters of Irish National Opera, including an orchestra rehearsal area. The week this was reported, the Irish opera, MARS, won the Sky Arts Award for opera, which should considerably raise the profile of Irish opera. [ ‘The location is brilliant’: Irish National Opera to make former Dublin church its homeOpens in new window ]In recent months in the capital, the city’s theatres were enlivened by the Dublin Theatre Festival and the Dublin Fringe Festival. The former generated the kind of lively conversation about theatre that has been missing from pubs and corners of rooms in recent years. Music venues were also recently crowded for Ireland Music Week. Last month saw the Dublin Independent Fashion Week and Design Week Dublin. Ireland’s architectural exhibition from the Venice Biennale, Assembly, will take up residence at Busáras this week. All of this is good stuff. All of it is in the city and of the city. All of it is something very important: ambitious. Open House Dublin, a programme of events in the city, presented a talk last week named O’Connell Street Cultures, with the head of the taskforce, Robert Watt, the architect Denise Murray, and the photographer Rich Gilligan. Open House’s tagline this year is Dublin Is Living. This is beginning to feel less like an aspirational statement and more like something becoming a bit more real. Perhaps we need to think of O’Connell Street less as a dastardly avenue that is challenging to tackle, and more like an artery from which cultural activity can flow. Populating the street with affordable apartments would be a key aspect of this. An excellent Dublin cultural touchstone during this time is the Bram Stoker Festival, which starts on Friday and runs for four nights. The festival began in 2012, and is focused on the legacy, through various interpretations, of Bram Stoker. It draws on the Gothic and the Victorian – the architectural, atmospheric and literary qualities of the capital that are rarely featured in festivals. It appears to do an awful lot with relatively little. O’Connell Street has always been more than just a street. Yes, it’s weighed down by poor design decisions and a lack of vision, but that can change. There is no trick to this. But considering it a treat might be a start.