Dun Laoghaire Facelift Our Way

Don’t get us wrong. We Dun Laoghirians are very happy that at long last work is to begin on the new public baths project in September 2016.? The new plans are classy that’s for sure, but they are just a little too weather-reliant to satisfy all our aquatic needs.

The public needs an indoor pool as well as the lovely floaty barge seawater one proposed for beside the new urban beach. Here at image.ie we like to tie things up in pretty little packages so we have come up with a solution to the disconnect, which naturally involves us all getting the best of both worlds.? Given that the seafront is getting all the Corpo love these days, what say somebody enterprising turns the vile Shopping Centre just inland into something a tad more Caribbean- Rainbow Rapids on steroids?

It can be modelled on the outstanding work of some clever virtual travel trailblazers in Germany and Lithuania.? In Berlin’s Tropical Islands Resort, you lounge by a neon turquoise lagoon under blue skies 365 days a year. Das Truman Show, bitte. In Vilnius, you can catch a few waves, have your Bora Bora Sauna, knock back a Polynesian-themed cocktail and hang out on manicured sand to your heart’s content even in February. What’s not to like?

Redevelopment could be funded by the contemporaneous introduction of some equally tasteful, and of course clich?-free, Irish?themed attractions abroad. Surely there are people in places who are only dying for a break from relentless sun and dry heat who would fancy a visit to a giant dome lined with panoramic John Hinde stock photography, a hermetically sealed environment that made the most of honest to goodness Irish weather. Constant drizzle would be the default setting while intermittent rain showers provided the real thrills and the odd flash of sun messed with people’s heads. There’d be a shop where you could pick up an Aran jumper, a flatpack pub pushing extra creamy (from an aerosol can) Irish coffees and plenty of diddly aye music playing throughout.

This could be huge in and around Dubai, where the fake snow park in the Emirates Mall is celebrating its 10^th birthday. Who wants to launch the kickstarter campaign?

@lgeorge353