‘It’s not a hen party hellscape’: Dublin’s Temple Bar strives to shake off its bad reputation

Some say Temple Bar is a victim of outdated stereotyping and that a renaissance is under way. Photograph: Clodagh Kilcoyne/Reuters

When Ireland redeveloped a swathe of central Dublin in the 1990s, the idea was to create a version of Paris’s Left Bank, a cultural quarter of cobbled lanes, art and urban renewal.

Planners and architects transformed the run-down Temple Bar site by the River Liffey into an ambitious experiment that drew throngs of visitors and won awards.