Posts Tagged ‘ghost estate’
Cul Fadda Ghost Estate, Co Kerry
Photos of ghost estate have become all too common. But Cul Fadda in Sneem, Co Kerry, is still noteworthy. First of all consider the number of houses which are now lying idle and empty. This, at a time, when homelessness is rife. With the coming winter what will become of these houses in Sneem? Nothing. They will lie empty while people suffer in the cold, around the towns and cities of Ireland. Talk about an insane world. Capitalism!
Cul Fadda itself became the focus of an art project organised by Jochen Gersz. He coordinated a group of 57 local school children who worked on transforming the empty and uncompleted ghost estate into a statement about the aftermath of the Celtic Tiger. Some of this is certainly interesting….
But it hardly gets to the heart of the matter. Why not go a lot further and give these houses to a trust that could make positive use of them?
But I’m guessing that won’t happen and that some of the same vested interests that caused this huge mess here in Ireland still have a stranglehold on everything in the zone of property and wealth. So, there will be no giving these empty houses to any worthy trusts or such like.
The former show house for the development is decorated inside and is all the more ironic for this. When you look in the window, you can see that it is fully painted and furnished. There must be so many people who would walk in the door of that show house tomorrow morning and take up residence. But that is not to be, of course.
The show room opening hours!
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Ireland’s Mary Celeste: Cill Eoin “Ghost Estate”, Kenmare
I came across this small ghost estate on a recent trip to Kenmare. The estate, Cill Eoin, is near the ruin of an old church on the Kenmare-Kilgarvan Road. As ‘ghost estates’ go this is an extraordinary place.
The most striking aspect of Cill Eoin is the feeling I got that it had been abandoned suddenly. The scaffolding inside some of the partially finished houses is still in place. There is equipment lying around as if it had been used earlier that same day that I visited. Some of the houses are in such good condition that you expect to see someone come in and check on progress. Cill Eoin is the Mary Celeste of building sites.
Other signs tell a different story, of course. Weeds have taken over the paths between the various houses. The nails that lay in piles here and there are badly rusted. And there is such an amount of bird song, as if the birds know the real story about this place: no one had been around here for a long, long time.
Just standing there and looking around, I understood better than I ever had before how the future has been stolen from us all and our children.
Kevin Doyle Blog 