Back in the summer of 2011, Bob Wilson’s cousin was visiting from Ireland. Naturally, he thought to take her to Toronto’s award-winning Ireland Park, a green space memorial to migrants displaced from the Emerald Isle during the Gorta Mor — Great Famine — of 1847.

Unfortunately, the park was closed. “It was hopelessly disappointing,” said Wilson. “We were completely let down.”

Much to the chagrin of curious tourists and the city’s Irish community, Ireland Park remains out of public reach nearly three years after it was first closed off by construction. With a new promenade nearing completion to the east, and work on the airport tunnel and Canada Malting silos to the west and north, the park could still be closed at the end of the year — or later.

“Oh, that’s a hoot. It really is,” Wilson guffawed upon learning this. “I mean, gee, three years? Come on.”

As it stands now, unless you’re airborne or good in the water, there are only two ways to see the park, situated at the southeast corner of Éireann Quay — at the foot of Bathurst St., across from the island airport. You can either weave through idling taxis on the airport side and peer through a metal fence, or catch a glimpse of the park’s symbolic and sorrowful bronze statues across the channel from the adjacent quay to the east. Neither affords a full view of the park or its memorial wall engraved with 1,100 names.

“Everyone in the Irish community is frustrated that the park is closed for as long as it has been, and no one is more frustrated about it than I am,” said Robert Kearns, chairman of the Ireland Park Foundation.

The group raised $3.5 million of public and private funds over 11 years — including $700,000 from Queen’s Park and Ottawa, and half a million from the Irish government — to build the park, which opened in June 2007 and won the Ontario Association of Architects Award for design excellence in 2009.

Kearns said construction delays have pushed back the park’s reopening, after it was first closed to keep pedestrians at bay during upgrades on the east dock wall of the quay.

“These delays are the price we pay for getting a waterfront location of that quality,” Kearns said. “On the long term, patience will be rewarded.”

Access to the park from the west side is now cut off by construction at the Canada Malt silos site, as well as a temporary cab corral area and parking lot. The park will remain closed from that side until the tunnel to the airport is finished, according to a city staff report for the site. The Toronto Port Authority, which operates the island airport and ferry terminal near the park, has pegged tunnel completion for mid-2014.

On the east side, Waterfront Toronto has been building a wider promenade since the city finished the quay wall more than a year ago.

Waterfront Toronto’s David Kusturin said construction is “essentially complete,” but the walkway will remain off-limits until the province approves an environmental survey that has required land use designation changes — in this case, from industrial to park land.

Kusturin said he’s hopeful the promenade will be open by the end of the year, but added that Waterfront Toronto has yet to submit its assessment results to the Environment Ministry.

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Based on talks with the city, Kearns is optimistic that waterfront wanderers will be able to get to Ireland Park once the promenade opens.

“I know it’s going to look spectacular,” he said.

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