Ballymun Flats

Flats Slide
Originally uploaded by petergriffin_1892.

Aside from the pictures of sheep, castles, Blarney stones & other assorted cliches that the local & visitor get to see there are some parts of Ireland which the tour books tend to ignore.

Ballymun, in North Dublin, was an attempt at a mass housing project in the late 1960's which was then blighted by terrible social problems. At a time when most of the western world realised that high rise complexes didn't necessarily work, we were busy building our own.

Most of the tower blocks have now been demolished & many of the remaining blocks have been left derelict.

It's not all bleak though, whilst in the area we did encounter some very friendly people who seemed interested in a bunch of people wandering around with cameras. And there is a lot of rengeneration going on in the area, new facilities planned, new transport links going in as well.

As for the treatment here, it's just a 'sixties slide' conversion, nothing special!