{"id":454159,"date":"2026-05-18T00:53:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-18T00:53:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/454159\/"},"modified":"2026-05-18T00:53:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-18T00:53:12","slug":"dublin-city-centre-playground-damaged-by-fire-for-the-second-time-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/454159\/","title":{"rendered":"Dublin city centre playground damaged by fire for the second time \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Dublin<\/a> city centre playground has been severely damaged by fire, after it was repaired at a cost of \u20ac400,000 following an earlier blaze.<\/p>\n

Garda\u00ed<\/a> are investigating the fire which broke out at Diamond Park playground, which is on the corner of Gardiner Street<\/a> and Sean McDermott Street, at around 3.30pm on Saturday.<\/p>\n

The refurbished playground and park were opened by former minister for finance Paschal Donohoe in 2023.<\/p>\n

A previous fire occurred in early November<\/a> last year and damaged parts of the park\u2019s perimeter fencing, prompting the Parks Services to declare the playground unsafe.<\/p>\n

Former Lord Mayor of Dublin and north inner city Independent councillor Christy Burke condemned the \u201cunexceptional behaviour by a small group of people\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe taxpayer has already paid nearly \u20ac400,000 due to last year\u2019s fire and now the taxpayer again will be expected to pay for any repairs. Garda\u00ed really need to investigate this outrageous behaviour,\u201d Burke said.<\/p>\n

\"AA sign placed on a fence in the park. Photograph: Paulo Nunes dos Santos <\/p>\n

In a statement, An Garda S\u00edoch\u00e1na confirmed investigations were ongoing into Saturday\u2019s incident, after the fire was extinguished by Dublin Fire Brigade. <\/p>\n

Following last November\u2019s blaze, the council deemed it necessary to close the park the following day to undertake a thorough assessment of the damage and to ensure the site\u2019s safety for public access. <\/p>\n

A council report added that in addition to the damage sustained to the playground, several fencing panels were found to be irreparably damaged, and had to be removed for health and safety reasons. The playground was close to reopening, after extensive work, before Saturday\u2019s fire.<\/p>\n

Deirdre Prince, senior executive parks office with Dublin City Council, noted in the report: \u201cIn addition to the recent acts of vandalism, there have been several incidents of antisocial behaviour against security personnel who were obstructed from performing their duties in Diamond Park.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Vandals cause extensive damage to Dublin city centre playground, rendering it unsafeOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

This is the third time vandalism has caused significant damage to the playground and the park, following a fire in July of last year.<\/p>\n

The current site includes a grass area, a football pitch, a playground, basketball and table tennis facilities.<\/p>\n

The redevelopment was part of a wider effort by Dublin City Council to improve parks close to social housing complexes and student accommodation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Dublin city centre playground has been severely damaged by fire, after it was repaired at a cost…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":454160,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[45,615,13288,34724,73102,61,60,43],"class_list":["post-454159","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-an-garda-siochana","tag-dublin","tag-dublin-city-council","tag-dublin-fire-brigade","tag-gardiner-street","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454159","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=454159"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454159\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/454160"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=454159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=454159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=454159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}