Richard Curran: We need to build up rather than out to solve the housing crisis and rejuvenate our cities

Ireland has been reluctant to embrace high-rise buildings to accommodate people but we must change our way of thinking

Richard Curran

There is a beautiful statue in Cork City called ‘Two Working Men’. A pair of city characters, Miah and Cha, stare up in awe at the colossal height of the old County Hall building in the city. When it was opened in 1969 (it is now a hotel) it was the tallest building in Ireland and the statue captures an innocent fascination with something that is actually only 17 floors high.

Unfortunately, while a lot has changed since 1969, a “Miah and Cha” worldview lingers when it comes to erecting buildings of more than 10 storeys in our cities. A reluctance to build upwards may have to do with our connection with land, lessons learned from the Ballymun towers experience, or a desire by those who own a home to keep things as they always were.