A Natural Fix for Ireland's 'Ghost Estates'

The fallout from the global economic crisis has left a haunting mark on the landscape of Ireland in the form of what are known colloquially as “ghost estates,” housing developments that in some cases were never completed, or completed but never occupied.

The country’s Department of the Environment estimated in 2010 there are 2,800 such sites. Tens of thousands of new homes were built in sprawling suburbs for tenants who never materialized. The people who actually do live in these desolate places deal not just with the pain of a bad investment and lack of community, but also with real risks - a situation dramatized by the recent death of a toddler who wandered through an unsecured fence and drowned in a puddle near an open drain. Sites with no residents at all are a blot on the countryside.

The government has been struggling to find a solution to the problem, which resulted from wildly optimistic overbuilding during the “Celtic Tiger” boom of just a few years ago, and has come to symbolize the depth of Ireland’s economic distress. The National Asset Management Agency (NAMA) is one government entity that has taken over some of the failed developments. It’s supposed to be working on making the ghost estates cleaner and more secure.

But some ordinary citizens are frustrated with NAMA’s pace, and have responded by creating a group called NAMA to Nature. Their mission, according to their Facebook page: “Rather than watch the government dither and procrastinate let's help nature take [the ghost estates] back.” They intend to start that process by planting hundreds and hundreds of trees, without asking anyone for permission.

It was through a Facebook invitation from friends that Frank Armstrong, a food writer and lecturer at University College Dublin’s Adult Education Centre, joined a NAMA to Nature planting venture. Participants met at “The Waterways” in Keshcarrigan, a small village in County Leitrim. Signs at the site still promise a bucolic housing development offering “Boating from your back door!” The reality is something else entirely, wrote Armstrong in an article on his experience in The Journal:

Armstrong, along with other NAMA to Nature volunteers led by founders Serena Brabazon and Andrew Legge, planted 1,000 saplings that day, paid for by the group’s members. The police (or “gardai”) showed up in the middle of the planting, but things didn’t get ugly: