Peter Dowdall: St Patrick's Street sets the seeds for a cooler, greener Cork

The new greening pilot scheme aims to make the city more welcoming as well as boost business and biodiversity

Extensive new street planting brings trees, flowers and greenery to Cork City’s main thoroughfare St Patrick's Street. Picture: Chani Anderson

Cork's St Patrick’s Street has become a little greener this summer, and in a way that is hard to miss. 

Sections of footpath on both sides of the street, outside the Savoy and near where Winthrop Street meets Patrick Street by Brown Thomas, have been given over to substantial new planting, with birch trees, shrubs, flowers and seating, at last creating much-needed pockets of green in the heart of the city.

Peter Dowdall, seated by the new planting boxes this week.

It is part of Cork City Council’s new greening pilot for the street, an initiative designed to make the city centre greener and more welcoming. The project has re-allocated space for planting and seating, and judging by the number of people already stopping and sitting there, it is doing exactly that.

I think it looks great, but more importantly, this is about far more than how Patrick Street looks.

Often, people talk about planting in our towns and cities as decoration. Put in a few trees, add some flowers and brighten the place up, but that shows a significant misunderstanding and seriously underestimates what plants can do for an urban environment.

The trees used here are birches, and they are still relatively young. Give them time, and they will begin to develop proper canopies over the street. On a hot summer’s day, that canopy will provide shade, making the space underneath considerably more comfortable for people.

Trees are effectively natural cooling systems; their leaves intercept sunlight, while water moving through the tree and evaporating from its leaves also helps cool the surrounding air. We do not need to invent a technological solution for this; the natural world already has a very good one.

The trees are only one part of this planting, and underneath them is a rich mixture of other plants, creating different heights, textures, flowers and foliage. At the moment, rudbeckias, kniphofias, achilleas and crocosmias are in full bloom.

Flowering plants can provide nectar and pollen for insects and, if left to stand over the winter, the dead and dormant stems provide nesting opportunities for beneficial insects, while denser planting creates opportunities for shelter and, depending on how it develops, nesting and feeding for birds.

A bee feasts on the flowers on St Patrick's Street.

A small planted area on St Patrick’s Street is obviously not going to solve biodiversity loss in Cork, but think, though, of what begins to happen if projects such as this are repeated throughout the city. One area joins another, a planter connects with a park, a tree-lined street connects with a garden, the river or another green space.

Gradually we begin to create a network through which wildlife can move rather than isolated pockets of green surrounded by hard surfaces.

Picture: Chani Anderson

When rain lands in Cork City or in any city, it lands on our rooftops and footpaths and from these, it moves rapidly into the drainage system.

These pockets of greening on Patrick Street will absorb water, slow its progress and reduce the volume of water ever hitting the drainage system. In a city such as Cork where the River Lee is prone to flooding at times of heavy rainfall, the importance of this cannot be overstated.

No individual planter is going to prevent the river from flooding, but the principle, however, is enormously important. If we create enough planted areas across a city, each capable of intercepting and holding some rainfall, then collectively they can make a difference.

This is one of the great strengths of green infrastructure — the same planting that helps with biodiversity can also help with rainfall, temperature, air quality and our own wellbeing.

These trees and other plants at the top of Winthrop Street will also capture airborne pollutants, particulate matter and carbon, thus creating a much healthier environment.

The new urban planting and green spaces along St Patrick's Street.

Benches have been incorporated into the Patrick Street planting, and already people are using them. Good public spaces give us reasons to stop rather than simply pass through, and all of us are naturally drawn towards trees and plants.

As a society, we are becoming increasingly urbanised, and at the same time we are facing serious problems around loneliness, social isolation and mental health.

There is now substantial international evidence showing a positive relationship between access to green spaces and mental health and wellbeing.

These plants outside Brown Thomas are not flower beds; they are pieces of living infrastructure. 

Picture: Chani Anderson

But on a much simpler note, plants make places nicer, and if people enjoy being somewhere, they meet there, they stay longer, and guess what happens next? Local businesses benefit as people visit nearby shops and cafés. Cork city centre needs people, and making it somewhere people want to spend time can only benefit everyone.

Cork City Council describes St Patrick’s Street as “the civic spine of our city”, adding: “These improvements are about giving people more reasons to stop, sit and enjoy it.”

The council also says the pilot is intended to create “a greener and more welcoming space for people in the heart of the city centre.”

Colourful blooms bring a splash of colour and provide a welcome source of food for pollinators.

That ambition makes sense to me, and the planting has been installed to the very high standard I would expect from Pavilion Garden Centre in Ballygarvan. There is good plant diversity — the birches give the scheme structure and, importantly, it looks like planting rather than a few token pots added as an afterthought.

What happens next will be important as urban planting needs maintenance.

Too many public planting schemes begin beautifully and gradually deteriorate because money is found for installation but not for long-term care; I hope that does not happen here.

Bees make the most of the new plants and flowers.

More than anything, though, I hope St Patrick’s Street is the beginning rather than the end.

Imagine this approach repeated throughout Cork City, with trees and substantial planting appearing wherever space allows. One street at a time, we could create a cooler, greener, more biodiverse and more pleasant city.

We already know how to do it.