Grafton Street goes green to celebrate new pavements

Dublin's Grafton Street will go green on Friday night in a joint celebration of St Patrick and the completion of the street's repaving scheme.

The €4 million repaving project saw sections of the street cordoned off for months at a time since May 2013 so that the old red brick surface could be replaced with stone.

With the project now completed the council is moving on to the streets to its west, starting with Johnson’s Court, a narrow lane that runs from Grafton Street to the Powerscourt Town Centre, and the pedestrianised section of Wicklow St.

Lord Mayor of Dublin Christy Burke will perform the ceremonial switching on of the new street lights at 6.45pm. The lighting will be green for this weekend to mark the St. Patrick's Festival. "This will showcase a new public lighting feature which allows the council to change the colour of street lights on Grafton Street to mark special occasions," the council said.

Mr Burke thanked businesses and shoppers for their patience during the work. “Following these works Grafton Street is now an even bigger draw for shoppers and tourists. The works were carried out with the minimum of disruption and that is a credit to everyone involved, in particular the City Council, the contractor, the businesses and members of the public.”

Work on Wicklow Street and Johnson Court is due to start next month and be completed by late September at a cost of €0.5 million.

The work is part of the Grafton Street Quarter Public Realm Plan published in 2013, which envisages a €14 million investment over three years to upgrade the largely Victorian area from St Stephen’s Green to College Green and from South Great George’s Street to Kildare Street.