Ballymun about to see its seven towers levelled

A RESIDENT casts a nostalgic upwards glance, but for the children life is a game.

Contrasting scenes at Ballymun high-rise flats mark the final hours of this controversial north Dublin landmark.

Named after seven executed leaders of the 1916 Rising, the first of the tall buildings to be razed to the ground meets its fate tomorrow.

At noon, Taoiseach Bertie Ahern will signal the demolition of the 15-storey Pearse Tower. A super long reach crane will bite into the structure, reducing its fabric to briefcase-sized chunks.

More than 40 years ago Ballymun was built to house people from the inner city then living in dangerous, crumbling tenements.

Large crowds are expected to witness the demolition. The ceremony takes place against the backdrop of emerging Ballymun New Town - the biggest local authority regeneration scheme in Europe.

Tonight the people of Ballymun hold a wake, from 6pm to 11pm, to remember and reminisce about life in the old flats.

There will be live music, readings, storytelling, theatre and dance by local and national artists. “It’s not like it’s every day that people’s homes disappear,” Eileen Dennan, who lived in a sixth-floor flat, recalled yesterday.

“I found that I had a mixture of feelings about it, so I decided to write about that mixture,” she said.

Eileen and more than a dozen fellow Ballymun residents felt they should record life as they knew it from the high-rise perspective.

The result was the publication of The Wake, a 12-page souvenir newspaper containing short stories, anecdotes and poems.