June 11, 2007
Welcome to the Hotel Ballymun
Hotel Ballymun re-considers the utopian architecture of 1960’s Ballymun and encourages the practice of salvaging and re-imagining objects, spaces and resources from the past, which can be re-used inventively to meet contemporary needs - Seamus Nolan.
I didn't get a chance to consider Utopia myself when I visited the Hotel Ballymun last Easter. As part of a multi-million redevelopment, the apartment complex in Ballymun is being razed to the ground and replaced by new, low-rise buildings. The Ballymun complex was dominated by seven, 15-storey towers, each named after an executed leader of the 1916 Easter Rising. Now, just as the increasingly expensive northern suburbs of Dublin spreads out towards Ballymun, the area is getting all spruced up, ready to meet them. Beside the striped chimney of the heating unit, which sent heating unevenly to all the buildings, and blew steam from the manholes in the street, a new hotel complex (the Ballymun Plaza) has been built, and in every direction, cranes announce the continuing remaking of Dublin.
A sure sign that the country is rolling in money is the fact that a small slice of the budget for redeveloping the Ballymun area was put aside for artistic endeavour. The point of Hotel Ballymun was to use the top floor of Thomas Clarke Tower as an artistic space. So from the 31st of March to the 27th April 2007, the top storey of the tower block was converted into a 'hotel' - former apartments, sorry, flats were converted into bedrooms and a couple of the flats were used as a communal kitchen and a theatre space. On the night I was there, there was a DJ playing in the theatre room (at ear-splitting volume), and afterwards, everyone met in the kitchen for a chat and a few more drinks [everyone erred on the side of caution when it came to booze. I.e. they brought enough to ensure there was no chance of running out]. Later, someone recited some poetry. The mix of people seemed to consist of people working in the arts and people who had come to take pictures. At about 2am, I repaired to bed, to be back up again for six to catch the sunrise.
There was a security company employed to look after the residents. You had to be indoors by midnight, and no more than 40 people could stay in the hotel at any time. [The security guards were all local lads, and knocked great craic out of the concept of tourists visiting Ballymun]. They were also supposed to prevent people from smoking indoors. That meant, in order to light up, you had to take the lift down to the entrance - that worked for a while, but as the night wore on, there was some sneaking smoking going on , out on the balconies. There is an angry article in Indymedia complaining about 'poverty tourists' [particularly southsiders] turning up to gawp at the locals. Ironically, the author isn't from Ballymun, so he was complaining about others vicariously experiencing life in Ballymun by being vicariously angry on the locals behalf. Ah well.
Me ? I was there for the views. Once the towers are demolished, those views of the city are gone. We were in luck with the weather - Easter Saturday night was clear, and Easter Sunday morning began with a beautiful sunrise. In the gallery below, the interior pictures show the bedrooms, kitchen and 'garden' rooms, as well as one of the 'chilling out' room. The exterior shots show the other tower blocks not yet demolished, as well as the construction work in progress in Ballymun. From the tower, you can see the Spire in O'Connell Street, Croke Park, the Financial Services centre, as well as Glasnevin cemetery (with its faux round tower) as well as the Guinness brewery. To the east, the island of Ireland's Eye in Dublin Bay is illuminated by the rising sun, and, to the south, the faint outline of a faraway peak is the Sugarloaf Mountain in Co. Wicklow. The white streaks in the sky in the night shots are planes coming in to land at Dublin airport, which is right beside Ballymun.
Mind you, "Angry from Indymedia" might have had a point. The main task of the security personnel was to keep track of everyone in case there was a fire. An evacuation, particularly at night, would require a bunch of tipsy folk stumbling down 15 storeys of stairs, as quickly as possible. And when we arrived on Saturday evening, the security guards were at pains to point out the evacuation procedure because the smoke alarm had gone off at 2am the previous night, and they had to get everyone out.
It was only when I went into the communal kitchen the next morning and was looking to make some toast that the full story of the alarm came out. The toaster was confiscated, because, the previous night, someone had stuck a couple of croissants into the toaster. The resulting smoke cloud set off the alarms, and hence the evacuation. Toasted croissants ? In Thomas Clarke tower ? You can take the man out of the Southside, but you can't take the Southside out of the man.
P.S.BTW, if you click on the Wikipedia entry for Ballymun, you'll see a picture that was also taken on Easter Sunday morning. It was taken by Aimee Tyrell - a photographer also staying in the Hotel that night (and who also got up at 6am to catch the dawn). There's some great shots on her own site - well worth a look.
Gallery of the Hotel Ballymun, Easter Weekend, 2007
ballymun, dublin, hotel, thomas, clarke, easter, ireland, galway, irishblogs, photoblogs, photography, galwayblogs, monasette, north atlantic skyline,Canon, 5D, june, 2007
Posted by Monasette at June 11, 2007 07:25 PM