Three Donegal voices will feature in a new documentary exploring the housing crisis since the birth of the Irish state.
100 Bliain de Thithíocht – Géarchéim gan Deireadh (100 Years of Housing – Crisis Without End) a feature documentary, written and directed by Paul Webster, will air this Wednesday, October 25 at 9.30 pm on TG4.
It is a decade-by-decade look at how Irish housing issues have been tackled since the birth of the Irish state and where it all went so wrong.
Ireland was born in a housing crisis and it has never gone away. Every government and generation has had to contend with this same issue.
The documentary draws a line from the birth of the state to the crisis we find ourselves in today. From the flats of the 30s to the high-rise of the 60s. From the bungalows of the 70s to the bubble of the 00s.
This film explores the ideas that worked and the ones that were disastrous, painting a picture of how we lost our way and how we can fix the current crisis.
It’s largely forgotten now, but one of the key issues driving the Irish revolutionaries during the War of Independence was the housing question. Once the civil war was over, the former revolutionaries had to figure out how they would address the desperate housing situation.
Now for the first time ever, the one hundred year history of housing in Ireland is laid out in this fascinating documentary that looks at the big housing stories of each decade up to 2023 and attempts to pinpoint the seeds of our current situation. The Suburb, The Flat, the Bungalow, these were all ideas, ideas that would fulfil our various housing needs.
In the 1970s, a small book of architectural designs called Bungalow Bliss changed the landscape in Ireland forever.
In Donegal, they had their own version of Bungalow Bliss. Architect, Tarla MacGabhann explains how and why his father came up with a selection of bungalow designs that were better suited for Donegal. The makers of this documentary spoke with Áine Curran who grew up in one of these houses, her family were one of the thousands of emigrants who returned to live in Donegal in the 1970s.
Gaoth Dobhair based auctioneer Éamon McBride also talks about the legacy of the bungalow in rural Donegal.
This documentary delves deep into the housing concepts that have shaped the country we live in. A host of historians, architects, planners and thinkers have been carefully selected to give new insight into this living history that couldn’t be more relevant today.
As well as this, we hear from the people who lived in the iconic developments that make up this history. As housing has always been a huge political issue in Ireland, the media of each era reflects this.
This rich archive is presented in a new light and includes revealing and heartening insights from real people throughout the decades, building a picture of how housing policies affected ordinary people.
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