THE old Pigeon House power station, which came within a whisker of demolition a few years ago, may soon enjoy a new lease of life as a science museum.
The rescue of the station, commissioned in 1904, was due to the determined efforts of a local Ringsend community group and a number of ESB workers who were unwilling to see a Dublin landmark fall under the wrecker's ball.
The Ringsend and District Community Centre has assembled an ambitious £12 million plan, according to Ms Helen Perry the project manager.
"Some of the ESB staff believed the station had historical value but they hadn't an idea about what to do with it," she said. A management committee in the community centre came up with the idea to turn the 11,000 sq m building which has its own harbour and lands covering over seven acres, into an interactive science museum.
"The scale of the project is very innovative for a local community group," Ms Perry said. Far from keeping displays under glass, visitors will be encouraged to push buttons, turn cranks and otherwise panhandle the exhibits. "Too often museums are seen as an exclusive and excluding place. This is our way of overcoming this attitude".
The Pigeon House nestles at the foot of the towering twin smokestacks of the modern Poolbeg power station which replaced it in 1965. A feasibility study to be released next week calls for a £7 million restoration of the buildings and harbour with £4 million to be spent on the displays. Many interactive science centres were visited, according to Ms Perry, and good ideas have been borrowed.
The Pigeon House plan includes similar facilities to Paris's Museum of Science and Industry at La Villette with its Cite de Metier (city of jobs) which links exhibits with educational, training and career information. The EU, the Government and several US foundations are to be targeted for funding. The Minister for Finance, Mr Quinn, is a local TD.
Perhaps as daunting as the financial aspects is the difficult problem posed by the station's close proximity to the corporation's sewage treatment plant.
Sludge ponds full of the worst Dublin has to offer cluster nearby and the jetty where a ship loads sewage sludge for discharge beyond the Bailey lighthouse shares the Pigeon House harbour.
However, the stench should go before the project sees its first visitors about 2000 as the corporation's sewage treatment works' are being upgraded.
