Haulbowline Island Park which is set to open in May as the newest park within the Ring of Cork. The site has had a remarkable transformation within Cork Harbour over the last year with the ongoing project that was signed off 8 years ago to . The 22 acre site was once the home of Irish Steel which operated on the site from 1939 until it closed in 2001. The east tip of the island described by the EU as violating the Waste Directive and issued fines over the site which prompted the government to clean up the dump which contained slag and other toxic material.
The Department of Marine and Agriculture set out to fix this eyesore and the cleanup and transformation effort began transforming this once “toxic moonscape” into one of Cork Harbour’s most picturesque sites.
The government have recently committed to continue the cleanup for the remainder of the former Irish Steel site. You can watch the video of the site’s transformation here: