FOREWORD

Enabling Sandymount Achieve its Full Potential

Since 1962, the Sandymount and Merrion Residents Association (SAMRA) has been working to protect and improve Sandymount Village and surrounding areas, Sandymount Strand and Dublin Bay, and influence matters that affect the local community and visitors.

Sandymount Village Design Statement 2011

In 2010-2011, SAMRA and other residents’ groups, alongside experts in urban planning and design, Dublin City Council and The Heritage Council worked with the community to develop the Sandymount Village Design Statement to create a shared vision. Its main goals were 

• To protect and enhance Sandymount’s unique sense of place
• To improve the appearance, quality and function of the public realm
• To enhance community amenities

The Statement was comprehensive and widely welcomed. A number of projects noted in the Statement were delivered. These include the designation of a significant part of the village as an Architectural Conservation Area, the establishment of the Community Centre and the hosting of literary, cultural, and family focused events.

However, many projects have not been realised, mainly those seeking to improve the public realm. These projects would ideally link the features of the village, its outskirts and the strand, and together could significantly enhance its civic benefits to the community and visitors.

The Village Ideas Project 2024 

In 2022 SAMRA sought to build on the Sandymount Village Design Statement and develop a series of concrete and practical ideas to enable Sandymount achieve its full potential. 



Rather than focusing on a series of individual enhancements, it sought an integrated plan. In doing so, it sought to take account of the unique designation of Dublin Bay (of which Sandymount is a significant part) as a UNESCO Biosphere in 2015, and the Dublin City Development Plan 2022-2028. 

Community Grant Aid 

Thanks to a generous grant from the Dublin Waste to Energy Community Gain Liaison Committee, in 2023 SAMRA commissioned Grafton Architects, a world renowned and multi-award-winning Irish firm, to create an integrated holistic plan of ideas to enable this potential to be achieved.

Ideas to Reality 

What is presented here is a series of ideas. While they are the result of detailed research and world-class expert input, they are not cast in stone. Their purpose is to act as a focal point for detailed conversations with the many key stakeholders (local residents and businesses, public representatives, Dublin City Council, and the relevant agencies) with a view to moving from ideas to reality without unnecessary delay. 

Progressing the Village Ideas Project to date has been overseen by the SAMRA Committee and steered by the SAMRA Village Ideas Sub-Committee (Lead: Niall McElroy; Mark Wheeler; Karl Anderson & David Turner and representing the Sandymount Tidy Towns Community Association: Rita Collins, Chair).