Roscommon Town - Initial Thoughts

centre to edge - perception of people in Roscommon town

view from castle 12th October 2010

Market towns have traditionally evolved in Ireland as places of exchange. Is this still the case in Roscommon town? To a certain extent I found this to be true. My first visit to the town was on a Sunday. A beautiful sunny morning wandering the town proved quiet as many of the shops were closed and the people of the town if not attending Mass were most likely still at home. The traditional quality of a Sunday prevailing in the town to a certain extent it seemed. In the afternoon however we encountered more people. In fact, a large number of the people spoken to were not from the town itself but from neighboring areas, such as Boyle, traveling in for the day for various reasons. One man we spoke to outside a pub on Main Street told us how he regularly returns to visit his home town despite having moved to England in 1987 in search of work. So, within my first few hours in the town I deduced that despite initial appearances, the movement and exchange of people at a variety of scales was a significant factor in shaping the daily dynamics of the town.

Paradoxically, some younger members of the town community when asked what they felt was missing from the town were quick to suggest a cinema, telling me how they have to travel to Athlone when they want to go to a film. This I felt was telling of the differing needs and expectations different generations have for their town and evidence of the inherent challenges of market towns to sustain themselves and their communities today. Nonetheless, there is a distinct feeling of pride within the town.

In trying to define the core and the limits of the town I studied historical maps. The development of the town seems to have evolved around a succession of key gestures towards important building structures many of which still play an important role within the town today. The castle to the north was built in the late 1270s intended to be a center of Anglo-Norman power into the 14th century. The main street was laid out to create a grand axis encompassing the courthouse building and the castle further north.
The origins of the town can still be appreciated -the vast grounds of the castle forming a park today offer a wide vantage point of the surrounding hinterland, calling to mind the origins of the town. The market at the main square still is an important occasion, albeit more constrained.

Church Street would have developed then as a secondary route linked to Main Street when the monumental Sacred Heart Church was built in 1903. The greater field pattern and fabric is still similar across the maps although with a reduction in workhouse buildings. The old ‘gaol’ to the west of Main Street has disappeared however and is now the site of the Garda station. The advent of the railway station in 1860 linked the town to the wider context and thereby introduced another important node within the town. The fabric in more recent times of ‘suburbanisation’ shows the development of housing near this node as the extents of the town widened.

I inquired of the people of the town where they felt the center of their town was and where did it end? The general consensus was that the center was the traditional center at the market square/Bank of Ireland on Main Street and the limits described as ‘Goffe Street, at ALDI/LIDL or Carey’s Garage. Some gave a broader overview of the center as encompassing Main St, Church St and Castle St and spoke of how a local businessman believed the center was shifting to the shopping area in the southeast. This brought to mind how Koolhaas considers shopping centers the cathedrals of our time. An interesting theory when I examined a map drawn by two teenage girls to Dr Hyde Parke from Main Street with stronger emphasis on the shopping area and just arrows pointing towards town. Evidence again of the varying perceptions different age groups have of a town and its needs.