A Little History of the Future of Dublin - Frank McDonald

Paperback, RRP €14.95

A superb analysis by Frank McDonald on the past, present and future of Dublin as imagined by various planners over its history (as well as the various ideas of the ‘future’ of the city they suggested), coinciding with an exhibition on the subject in the Little Museum of Dublin, starting in October 2021.

A Little History of the Future of Dublin is the work of Ireland’s most respected commentator on the urban landscape. In the book, McDonald explores visions of the city, from the work of the Duke of Ormonde to Abercrombie's Dublin of the Future, through the excesses of the Celtic Tiger, to the decisions taken in the aftermath of the property crash. The book finishes with a plan for how the city could once again become one of the great small capitals of Europe.

Every generation has come up with its own vision of the future. In that tradition, alongside the main essay, some of the most prominent opinion forming Dubliners (including Fintan O’Toole, Una Mullaly, Alice Leahy, and Joe Duffy) reflect on where we are going – and how we are going to get there. What is the future of Dublin? And how has the answer to the question changed in the last four hundred years? This bracing and provocative new work explores these questions.

A Little History of the Future of Dublin will inform public debate about the future of the capital in the context of competing visions of the good life. Suddenly made more urgent by events such as Brexit and the Covid-19 pandemic, that conversation could not be more timely.