Experiencing Dublin’s Docklands: perceptions of employment and amenity changes in the Sheriff Street community

Abstract

Flagship projects and gentrification have a profound impact on the neighbourhoods which surround them. At present, most studies focus on their housing implications. We seek to engage in a broader understanding of their effects by examining the ways in which residents of a low-income neighbourhood adjacent to a new waterfront development perceive and experience changes in employment opportunities and local amenities which have arisen because of this project. We will examine the discourses of long-term residents (those residing for more than 25 years) of the Sheriff Street neighbourhood one of the city’s most deprived towards the new Dublin Docklands and its International Financial Services Centre (IFSC). This type of engagement with non-gentrifying groups is currently lacking from academic research and consequently limits our full understanding of the impact of these spaces.What we have found is a complex and nuanced picture, where residents are both optimistic and disappointed by the impact the project has had on their lives. Through the addition of new amenities catering to middleclass users, the Docklands reinforces old, and creates new, socio-economic divisions within the area.