Ballymun (Irish: Baile Munna) is an outer suburb of Dublin, Ireland, at the northern edge of the city's Northside.

The Wad is the area's main watershed, with branches most notably around Poppintree; it flows southeast, eventually reaching the estuary of the River Tolka at Clontarf[3] Ballymun neighbours Finglas, Glasnevin and Santry.

The name Ballymun most likely derives from Baile Muin, meaning the 'town of the shrubland', in reference to the once dense forest which covered the area.

[4] In the early 1700s, the tower house at Ballymun was constructed as a mill, which was subsequently taken over by an English educational society in 1744 to found a girls Charter School.

Due to the dense woodland and sparse population, the area was generally regarded as dangerous in the early 1700s, with numerous highwaymen operating on the Drogheda Road.

[5] In 1964, in a response to this housing crisis in inner city areas of the capital, plans were made to build high-rise flat complexes; construction started in 1966 and were completed by the following year.

[citation needed] At the time of its construction, Ballymun was a sought-after location and prospective tenants had to pass an interview to get housing there.

The flats were built in the 1960s on contracts from the National Building Agency under the authority of Neil Blaney, the Fianna Fáil Minister for Local Government.

[6] Later commentators described the development of the flats and the district as problematic, with the environmental journalist Frank McDonald, in his book The Construction of Dublin, calling it the Irish state's "worst planning disaster", but the issues were not with the apartment buildings as such but the failure to integrate construction of accommodation with provision of services, problematic maintenance, notably of the lifts, the lack of social mix, and the abrupt move of tightly knit inner-city community families to an isolated area on the very edge of the city.

Dublin's City Architect, Ali Grehan, after working as a lead architect and designer with the Ballymun regeneration project, commented that the concept of the area, developed from green fields, and its new (for Ireland) types of accommodation were a "really great idea" but that the project was "doomed to fall into decline" due to poor planning and central government policies.

She especially highlighted the scale of the development, its purely public housing nature, and its location — a "constructed around a roundabout ... a dead end".

She also noted that the concept envisaged the shopping centre being available from the start, but delayed for years, and the issues with lift and centralised heating system (also a new idea for Ireland) maintenance.

[7] The corporation had more gradual plans for development in multiple locations, and according to geographer Joe Brady of University College Dublin, Dublin Corporation were sceptical about the Ballymun scheme but given the weakness of Irish local government and especially its funding, had little choice but to work with the proposal from national government: They were made an offer by... Blaney which they couldn't refuse.

Over time, Ballymun became notorious for a number of social problems, such as drug abuse and unemployment, and was impacted by negative media coverage of the area.

Indeed, much of the present day central Ballymun lies on lands once in the northern reaches of the Albert Agricultural College estate, the forerunner of the present-day DCU.

[citation needed] The city architect commented in 2015 that the "killer blow" for Ballymun was the offering of a tenant-purchase scheme in 1985, which gave good terms for local authority tenants to buy out their accommodation, but only if they had a house, not a flat, which led to many committed community members moving from Ballymun to be able to avail of the offer.

[7] The government and Dublin City Council agreed an ambitious regeneration plan for Ballymun, with a budget exceeding €440 million.

The 15-storey hotel and apartment building was built as part of the Ballymun renewal, developed in 2006 by Pierce Contracting and a group of investors who included businessman Paddy Kelly.

The incident occurred at 11.34 pm on the night of 16 August 2007, when the McDonnell Douglas jet was carrying 112 passengers and six crew on a charter flight from Lisbon to Dublin.

[citation needed] From the earliest years of the area's development, due to delays in building retail units, it was served by "van shops".

By that time, there were urgent calls from traders and locals for serious refurbishment, but it proved hard to progress these issues due to questions about who should fund any work.

53% of the centre and surrounding site was sold to major developer Treasury Holdings for 6 million pounds in 2000, with the local authority retaining the rest.

In 2009, when Ireland was recovering from financial crisis, the developer secured permission for a complex to be called Springcross, involving a planned investment of 800 million euro to provide more than 70 shopping and office units, cinema and other entertainment facilities, dining places, a new public library branch, and a creche.

The council announced plans to sell the site to a new developer, who would be permitted to construct a combined retail and residential building.

[citation needed] Two hotels, Travelodge and Metro are located in this area, as well as a city-owned gym and leisure centre (the old Ballymun swimming pool was demolished in 2016 after being defunct for a number of years).

[31] For decades, Ballymun's reputation was damaged by a high level of negative publicity in the media,[32] usually focusing on crime and drugs, whilst ignoring positive news.

[35] In 2018 The 4th Act looked back at the whole regeneration, with contextual material about the area's history; it had significant appearances from several community activists, and City Council and BRL officials, and the artists, Seamus Nolan and Jochen Gerz, who led the biggest Ballymun arts projects, Hotel Ballymun and amaptocare respectively.

It also highlighted the compilation and even printing of the area's oral history project, which sponsor Ballymun Regeneration then refused to publish and distribute.