Ballymun Flats


The Ballymun Flats refers to a number of flats—including the Ballymun tower blocks, seven landmark residential towers built in the 1960s—in Ballymun, Dublin. In total there were 36 blocks of Ballymun flats. While nothing unusual by global standards, and small compared to Eastern European or Swedish norms, they were experimental for Ireland.
They were all demolished in the early 21st century; from October 2013 all three remaining blocks were empty, and last one was demolished in September 2015.
The 15-storey blocks actually had 17 storeys including the entrance floor and the plant room on the roof.
The Plunkett tower, one of the original named after the signatories of the Proclamation, was a 42-metre, 8,500-tonne building. It housed 90 families in 30 three, two and one-bed units.
There were also four-storey and eight-storey blocks.

History

The Ballymun Flats were built in the 1960s to accommodate the rising population, particularly to accommodate former residents of inner-city areas which were being cleared in the process of 1960s 'urban slum clearances'. Whilst suffering from a lack of sufficient public amenities, several schools served the area, as well as an Eastern Health Board medical centre and a purpose built shopping centre. The area suffered from many social problems such as drugs and rampant crime. The causes of these social problems, and the subsequent discrimination faced by many people with Ballymun addresses when seeking employment outside the suburb, have been disputed, but Ballymun generally paralleled the experience of many working-class people in the 1960 and 1970s when placed in high-rise locations.
Despite the negative perceptions of many non-residents of Ballymun, many of the residents insist that there is a strong sense of pride and community in the area. Lynn Connolly, whose 2006 memoir The Mun: Growing Up in Ballymun detailed her raising there in the 1970s and 1980s, readily acknowledged the problems there and wanted to get out at the time. But she later came to realise that there had been much that was good at the towers – in terms of a collective wit among residents and a helping sense of community – which had been ignored by the media.
The Ballymun Flats were the first place in Ireland to receive cable television. RTE Relays Ltd, a subsidiary of the national broadcaster RTE installed cable television into the flats in 1963, giving each flat the ability to watch the main UK television channels BBC One, BBC Two, ITV as well as RTE Television via cable.

Four-storey flats

The four-storey flats consisted of Sandyhill Avenue, Sillogue Avenue and Shangan Avenue, the height of all three were not always as visible as the higher storey flats. They were the earliest complexes to be demolished. The former flats of Sillogue Avenue are now just land whilst the former flats of Shangan Avenue have been replaced by new complexes. A new area called Marewood, consisting of houses and apartments, is now situated where the Sandyhill Avenue flats once stood.

Eight-storey flats

The eight-storey flats consisted of Balbutcher Lane, Shangan Road, Coultry Road, Balcurris Road and Sillogue Road.
The flats had two different designs, the more common being with the lift on the opposite side of the stairwell, Balbutcher and Shangan were the only ones to contain just this design. Balcurris contained one of the alternative blocks, Sillogue had two of the alternative blocks and three of the other blocks, three of the four Coultry blocks were made contained the lift on the side of the stairwell. Balcurris was the only row of flats to have its blocks separated by a road, the latter three blocks faced a different direction to the first two blocks and were the most visible from Dublin Airport.
Balbutcher Lane was upgraded in the 1990s where only residents were allowed to enter and had to buzz their way in, visitors needed permission from residents in order to enter. Windows were placed on the balconies and post would be delivered similar to how an apartment block would receive their mail. Railings were also placed around the flats and a playground was built at the back of the complex.
Sections of Coultry and Balcurris were demolished first, with the latter becoming the first complex to be completely demolished by 2009, it was originally noted that the Ballymun Shopping Centre and Metro North would be situated on the old Balcurris site, although these plans failed to materialize. Many of the complexes were demolished by 2012, after the removal of the Sillogue flats. Balbutcher Lane were the last eight-storey flats to go in 2015.

Fifteen-story flats

The Ballymun tower blocks were seven landmark residential towers built in the 1960s in Ballymun, Dublin, Republic of Ireland. The seven towers were named after the seven leaders of the 1916 rising; Patrick Pearse, Thomas MacDonagh, Sean MacDermott, Eamonn Ceannt, Thomas Clarke, James Connolly and Joseph Plunkett.
In 2004 demolition of the first tower began. The Patrick Pearse tower was demolished slowly by mechanical means, whilst MacDermott and MacDonagh Towers were demolished by controlled implosion. Ceannt, Plunkett, Clarke and Connolly towers were demolished by mechanical means.
The red aircraft warning lights on these structures were not connected to any form of back-up power for many years, leaving the towers completely dark in a power outage.

Construction/Demolition

In popular culture