Series · Cork's Marina Park · Episode 1

Building Ireland's First Water Park: Inside Cork's Marina Park

Most parks are designed not to flood. Cork's Marina Park is designed to do exactly that.

      Patrick McCabe (Redscape) & Rani Ishar (Okra) · Host: Jackie De Burca
    

Photo · Marina Park Promenade Cork by Jason Gairn for OKRA

Release

Coming from 1st October

▶ Listen to Episode 1

Listening Time · 18:12

// Paste Castos iframe here

In the first of a three-part series, Jackie De Burca sits down with the two landscape architects behind Cork's Marina Park — Patrick McCabe of Redscape and Rani Ishar of Okra Landscape Architects — to unpack how a low-lying, formerly derelict 36-hectare site on the edge of Cork's South Docklands became one of the most ambitious pieces of public realm in modern Ireland.

About this episode

Marina Park is often described as Ireland's first water park — not because of leisure or waves, but because water is the organising idea running through the whole design. The park is engineered to hold hours of stormwater when the River Lee is too high to drain into, and to release it back when the tide falls. Around that engineering sits a public space that hosts hurling finals at Páirc Uí Chaoimh, a promenade walked by more than ten thousand people at weekends, and a heritage trail reaching back to the 18th century.

This first episode is about how the park came to be. Patrick and Rani walk through the international competition Okra won in 2012, the multidisciplinary team that shaped the design, the fifteen-year phased delivery, the signature sinuous lines drawn from the river's own historic geography, the iconic red building preserved from the old showgrounds, and the layers of Cork history the park has quietly pulled back into public life.

In the next episode we get into the philosophy — living with water, and what Irish cities could learn from it. In the third, we look at what Marina Park has catalysed since it opened.

In this episode

00:00Intro — the park designed to flood

01:40Patrick McCabe on Redscape and his work in parks, heritage and water management

02:18What Marina Park is — 36 hectares, Páirc Uí Chaoimh, the polder and the levee

03:17Ireland's first water park — six hours of held stormwater and future-proofing against climate change

05:07Rani Ishar on the 2012 international competition and the multidisciplinary team

06:38Phased delivery — why the master plan mattered for funding

07:20Phase 1 opens in 2020 · the pedestrianised marina · 10,000 walkers at weekends

08:30Bridge — giving shape to 32 hectares of derelict ground

08:53Patrick on Ireland's shifting relationship with water — from friend to concrete walls

09:46Reading the old maps of the river — the sinuous design signature

11:15The red building — how a steel-framed survivor from the old showgrounds became the park's icon

12:24Rani on the 17th–18th century navigation wall — Cork's 300-year-old promise of a riverside walk

14:34The 18th-century folly, the old water line, and the heritage trail to Black Rock Castle

15:07Rediscovered places and the centuries-old trees already on the site

15:56Outro — what's next in the series

Meet the guests

Patrick McCabe

Landscape architect · Founder, Redscape

Irish-born, Netherlands-based, Patrick trained at University College Dublin and then took a design masters in the Netherlands. He's the founder and director of Redscape, working across regional-scale planning, parks, heritage and water management between Ireland and the Netherlands. He is part of Rivers 2040, an international study exploring how urban rivers could become central to regeneration.

Rani Ishar

Associate Architect · Okra Landscape Architects

Rani is an Associate Architect at Okra Landscape Architects, the Utrecht-based Dutch firm that led Marina Park's design. Okra's fifteen-year relationship with Cork began with the 2012 Marina Park competition and now extends to the North Docks, the South Docks and wider docklands regeneration. Rani focuses on integrated public-realm design for climate adaptation, urban naturalisation and healthy urban living.

In their words

In more recent times, water has not been seen as a friend in Ireland. It's been seen more as an inconvenience — and concrete walls have gone up around it.
— Patrick McCabe, Redscape

This is really the best thing — to see how people are using the space when you design it.
— Rani Ishar, Okra Landscape Architects

Take things from the past and move them into the future. Create the connection.
— Patrick McCabe, on the park's heritage layer

Explore further

Redscape — Patrick McCabe's landscape architecture studio, based in the Netherlands
Okra Landscape Architects — the Utrecht-based Dutch firm behind Marina Park
Marina Park, Cork — Cork City Council's page on the project
Rivers 2040 — the Ireland–Netherlands study Patrick discusses

Continue the series

▶

Episode 2

Living With Water

Coming from 1st October

▶

Episode 3

From Marina Park to Cork's Future

Coming from 1st October

Guests: Patrick McCabe (Redscape) · Rani Ishar (Okra Landscape Architects)

Host: Jackie De Burca

Series: Cork's Marina Park — a three-part Constructive Voices special

Constructive Voices is an independent podcast on sustainability and the built environment. If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and review us on your podcast app — it helps others find the show.

Constructive Voices

S6, E2: Building Ireland's First Water Park: Inside Cork's Marina Park

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