she's mad but she's magic.

Valérie Anex

Ghost Estates

2011

Ireland

The National Institute for Regional and Spatial Analysis NIRSA defines a ghost estate as a development of ten houses or more in which fifty per cent or less of homes are occupied or completed. In October 2010, according to official estimates, there were  2846 ghost estates and more than 350 000 vacant homes throughout the Republic  of Ireland. Ghost estates can be found everywhere, but most of them are located in  the rural areas of the northern and western part of the country, in the counties of  Cavan, Leitrim, Longford and Roscommon, which are the estates I visited.

These empty shells are eyesores for the locals in these small towns. The crisis is affecting  the country – unemployment, debts, budget cuts, flights of capital investments – but it  is also shaping its landscape. Bitter memories left by the spectral and temporary nature  of the property boom in Ireland, ghost estates are the symbol of the property market’s  collapse, a topology of the economic disintegration of the country.

Claire Finin - The Things I Never Said (2012)