Emma Curley
Architecture
Urban design
Facilitation

Killarney Master Plan

ec as part of MÓLA’s Urban Design and Landscape Unit developed a 15 year integrated Urban Master Plan for Killarney Town. The concept is ‘re-imagination’, a brand renewal that recognised the need to re-establish the town core as pivotal to the experience of Killarney. Our strategy for the town recognises that Killarney is one of the modern world’s oldest tourist destinations and a town that is positioned in one of Ireland’s most precious landscapes. It is Victorian Killarney, immortalised through travel memoirs and romantic poetry which established the most idealistic vision of the town.

A key objective for Killarney is to attain the dual goals of implementing an ambitious programme for tourism while diversifying its economic base. Central to this is the enhancement of the town for residents and visitors alike, capitalising on its built heritage of such key buildings as the Pugin Cathedral and 19th century mass concrete housing and its natural heritage of the National Park.

Separated from its landscape by the walled demesne, Killarney needed to reunite the built with the natural environment. The Killarney Urban Master Plan’s objective is to engage all stakeholders with the interface between the town and nature to experience a more accessible, legible and dramatic transition.

The Killarney Urban Master Plan was awarded Certificates of Merit in the categories of Planning Achievement and Urban Design at the Irish Planning Institute National Planning Awards, 2005.