Book Review: Modern Dublin: Urban Change and the Irish Past, 1957–1973. By Erika Hanna. Oxford University Press. 2013.

Urban change in Ireland is likely to attract considerable attention in forthcoming years. The post-Celtic Tiger era has left a legacy of poorly-constructed apartment buildings in towns and cities, as well as a plethora of ‘ghost estates’, the by-product of an unsustainable property construction boom, which blight urban and rural landscapes alike. The Celtic Tiger, however, was not the first construction boom in modern Irish history. During the 1960s, a shortage of housing, particularly in Dublin, led to considerable re-zoning of land for residential development. Much of this activity was subsequently scrutinised in Tribunals of Inquiry concerning planning corruption. During that time, some of Dublin city’s distinctive Georgian architecture was replaced by modern structures, and satellite towns were constructed on the city’s outskirts, the legacy of which are still visible today.