O'Devaney Gardens: three videos

To some TV viewers, O'Devaney Gardens stands for a fictional block of dilapidated flats in Dublin where Ado (Mark Dunne) has a bolthole in Love/Hate.

To some politicians, O'Devaney Gardens is a real-life housing estate in Stoneybatter that shouldn't be knocked down just yet but should be temporarily renovated, then demolished: a €4.7 million sticking plaster for the housing crisis instead of a permanent solution. Talk about half-baked.

The estate used to have 378 flats, in 13 four-storey blocks. Only 11 flats are occupied today, in three of the four remaining blocks. To the few families left on the estate, O'Devaney Gardens may be a rundown kip. But it's their kip, with its own history and community since it was built in the 1950s.

Last March the Council didn't even bother to inform these residents that it has plans to tear down the remaining four blocks, clear the site and build some 400 homes on it.

Check out these two short videos above by Daniel St Ledger of the buildings.

Postscript, 31 May 2016

RTÉ's Prime Time has made a 360° documentary about O'Devaney Gardens, "The Last Days of the Flats". Try scrolling with your tablet or PC mouse...