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Cathal McNaughton / Reuters
Fencing placed in front of The Waterways, an empty and unsold housing development in the village of Keshcarrigan, County Leitrim, Ireland, on Jan. 28, 2012.
Reuters photographer Cathal McNaughton reports on the lasting effects of Ireland's financial crisis:
Cathal McNaughton / Reuters
An electrical cable is used to secure a security fence surrounding Cnoc an Iuir, an empty and unsold housing development in the village of Drumshanbo, County Leitrim.
"If you build it, they will come." The iconic quote from the film Field of Dreams seems like a rebuke to Ireland's misguided builders and planners as the depressing sight of rows of newly built empty houses – windows broken and doors flapping in the wind – stretch out in the distance.
I'd come to Co Leitrim, in the west of Ireland, to see for myself the so-called ghost housing estates that first came to the public's attention four years ago as the Celtic Tiger collapsed leaving thousands of developers bankrupt and projects half finished. Surely in four years, something would have been done about this national embarrassment – so obvious a sign of the demise of Ireland’s once envied economy?
But the only solution that seems to have been put into action is fencing off the estates – hiding the embarrassing problem behind huge sheets of wood – leaving the houses to crumble into disrepair away from the gaze of despairing neighbours who paid full price for an identical house just 200 yards away.
Cathal McNaughton / Reuters
Unfinished houses at The Waterways, Keshcarrigan.
Hardly a town or village in Leitrim – the least populated county in Ireland and the worst affected by the over-enthusiastic builders – has been untouched. Pretty lakeside villages with perhaps just 200 residents now have 50 empty 'dream homes' in new developments where fading advertising signs boast of private moorings and roof gardens. Larger market towns have row upon row of once smart new town houses – clearly built with the upwardly mobile commuters who were supposed to move to the countryside as part of the government's largely ignored decentralisation project – now with brambles growing over the gardens, potholed roads unfinished and adorned with graffiti by the kids who use them as drinking dens.
Cathal McNaughton / Reuters
Fenced-off houses at The Waterways, Keshcarrigan.
Impressive holiday homes with 'stunning sea views' lie vacant with at most one unlucky tenant sharing their ghost street with long-abandoned builder's rubble and broken advertising signs banging in the wind at night keeping them awake.
Surprisingly many of the houses aren't even for sale any more – even if a buyer could be found in the precarious Irish financial market.
One resident – the sole home owner in a once stunning lakeside development – explained. "These were all sold but the developer needed more money from the bank to finish it and they refused. He went bust and that was that."
See more images on the Reuters Photographers Blog.
Cathal McNaughton / Reuters
The ironically-named Crest Of A Wave, an empty and unsold housing development in the village of Bundoran, County Donegal.
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huh? How does a banking failure cause a project like a construction project to fail? Are (irish?) people skimming the project budget so they can get another loan and can't because the bank is no longer lending? Is this how irish people do business?
A couple of years ago, my brother and I ran into two Irishmen at a bar who were drunk and loudly praising George W. Bush for the way their economy had prospered.
My brother had to break up the near fist fight when I told them that they were fvcked up and that they would pay someday for their ignorance.
Who was right, eh?
Yeah, that criminal Bush. He wrecked Ireland too. Him and Madoff, buddies. All the world's troubles for the next 50 years will be laid at his doorstep. We need 4 more years of Dems to solve it with more big government and monopoly money...
You are right. Four more years with Obama will help fix the mess Bush created. Obama is the best!
would someone like to explain how Moochelle Obamma lost her license to practice law forever in the State of Illinois? I have seen some pretty screwed up things lawyers have done......but have been allowed to reapply to the bar after 7 years......forever means you really screwd up. messing with escrow funds comes to mind! anybody have any info? media very quite on this subject. goggle it.
Probably because she stopped practicing -- law licenses are subject to renewal. Could we move on to something that is actually relevant?
Looks just like HUGE sections of Arizona, Nevada and Florida just to name a few. Still, sad to see.
those states look like fun on st. patrick's day with green beer and goo goo ga ga.
Flip that House!
Get Rich Quick!
I understand that the individual - Madoff - can not be blamed soley - I understand that it was many people, working in a mega money corporation playing - 3 card monty - with our money that brought down the (pun intended) house of cards - and today I read that those same money people are crying in their beer about having to live on $350K a year - I do hope that there is a special place in hell for them where the fire is hotter and deeper.
When everything else fails send in the Irish chicks to deal with requests to the banker on a personel leavel, you know the hotties, inspect the chalayley at least , it's been known to work in the past. Looks like water damage, LOL.
One of the strangest thing I cant understand is ' Where does the people go? They have to go some where, the builders have to some how make back their money, I don't get it. or is its just me who see that Capitalism does not work, and socialism should be the model?. The thing is that if this was true socialism, where no one is going after greed. I am sure that these villages wouldn't be abandoned and so many people wouldn't lost so much, because the builders and the lenders would be looking in the long terms and not a get rich scheme overnight!.. This is what is killing our economy and that of the rest of the world!..
WASP: good question you bring up- near 60 years ago my Irish father asked me, just a kid, where do the people go. For ages the Popes had said that capitalism was not the answer and I think the answer lies somewhere in between or something. The Englishman Hilaire Belloc mentioned a distributism of sorts. There are some brilliant people in our country who could answer your question but they will never get any notoriety.
Many Irish are now learning what can happen when you get an inflated sense of self. They were better off with many of the old ways. It was a simple country and a tonic to the sickness of the selfish arrogant modern world.
Troubled times in the shire. Must be because they have taken the hobbits to ISENGARD!
During the 1920's the U.S. went through this cycle with big land promotions in Florida and California. Nothing was doing down, everything was going up and up. Banks were loaning money to everyone and anyone. "Buy land, they are not making anymore of it". Unfortunately, nobody told the people that they had to pay back these loans with interest and that land prices would drop and drop they did and houses and land were vacant all through Florida and Southern California. Farmers could not sell their produce for a price to make payments on land and equipment and foreclosures started. The stockmarket crash of 1929 did not cause the depression but rather was caused by the same thing that casued the depression. Over speculation. Asset value dropped like a rock and the only thing of value was cash. My father was land manager for EJ Marshall, a multi millionaire in California who owned banks, manufacturing companies and ranches including the ranch which is Vandenberg Air Force Base now. EJ told my father to sell every cow, chicken, pig or goat and not to turn down a dollar a head. My father thought he was nuts but EJ knew the only ones to survive the crash and depression were the ones with cash. It will take generations for Ireland to come back and likely it will never be the Celtic Tiger again. Hopefully, the Irish have learned but I doubt that Americans have learned anything. Pay off your debts and get solvent. Screw the credit. There is nothing as beautiful as having cash in your pocket.
Cash didn't do shyt for the Germans in the early 30's. They'd have been happier with pigs and milk cows. A wheelbarrow full of Reichmarks to buy a loaf of bread. Sounds like us after 4 more years of Dumbo'.
Define greed: I want to go out work hard, take risk (yes I might lose everything) and get rich, if things work out in my favor. Ten you probably want a share in my wealth - for doing nothing productive and wasting your exisitence complaining about the "rich" - who is greedy?
If being simpleminded helps, you'll be a zillionaire.
Looks like Detroit...
Smorgas Borgas!
I have an Irish friend. Met him here in the states. he worked here because the economy in Ireland was so bad back then. He went "home" ten years ago when his homeland was booming he found work and started a new life. He like so many others lost his job. Lost his home and is saving to go to China to find work. His family will stay with relatives. He already has offers. Many US folks are doing the same especially those just out of college. What a world we live in now.
I really don't no what to say It's all SAD!!!!!!!!
China has entire ghost cities waiting for the "build it and they will come" to happen.
We are seeing it all over the world: people living with less because they don't need more. These "homes" would be lived in if people needed them. They don't and so they are empty. Why pay a big portion of your income as interest on a loan to buy a house you don't need? People aren't stupid, at least not ALL the time. "Want to pay a nice car and house payment?" asks the banker and insurer. Um, no thanks, I get by nicely with my one-bedroom apartment and bicycle. Good luck with that standard of living you don't need. I will continue to read about you in stories like these.
I thought only the USA was hit by this problem.
We were qualified to buy a house with a value of up to $230,000 and we bought one at $165,000 with 20 percent down. It's our house, we're staying here, we're making our payments, what the house is worth today is irrelevant. If you can't afford your house, stop whining and get out!
I know what you are saying John. I also qualified to buy a house three times what paid for mine in 1997. I put 25% down and payments were less than I was paying rent before that. I always paid [and still do] more than the mortgage, but 15 years on now, I am still underwater but getting by with much less. Oh that ramshackle one bedroom apartment I rented before finding my modest 3-bedroom home … the rents are $275 more a month now, and I am still paying less to live in my own home for approximately the next 28 months ... until I pay it off. As for that Get Out thing, several houses on my street the folks were required to leave.
If only the for seen could have been realized.
All the "money" in the world isn't going to matter when this global house of cards comes crashing down. It comes down to what's real, what you can protect and what you know to do with it.
Same in Costa Rica the Americans borrowed and started building Hotels and condo complexes,The banks lent money to start but building stopped after no one was buying. Ghost half built places being taken back by the forest
I thank my garage for not selling my home and moving to Las Vegas before the housing crash. I didn't want the bother of taking all the junk out of my garage. So here I sit comfortable in my home in my dinky town, with my garage still full of junk.
One day I hope the common people of the world finally learn the hard lesson of live,I almost was in the same boat,got lucky didn't lose my retirement,real close but did not,so here it is,you hear all these fools saying how you don't deserve nothing because you do not risk it all,well those are the real people that cause all the problems, First the money they use is from hard working people like us that we put in banks or stock market's,second the fool's that risk our money think they are some kind of god,lol,If they lose it on risky investment they just laugh,if they get lucky they get rich.So what I'm saying is stop the money train and take away their play money and see how they like it.My 88 yr old father was conned by a stock broker to invest in risk stocks,lost a bunch,so what I'm saying is these people think their so smart but their not,take away their play money,put it in something only you can touch and let them fool's come back to earth,maby in about 10 yrs. of hard time's ,unemployed they will wake up.Good luck all the real worker's of the world.