Poem by : Susan Lower
My mother’s kitchen was worn with age.
In the old farm house,
where we lived and played.
She kept it nice and tidy.
The glasses always washed.
Not a plate out of place.
On the old red linoleum floors.
I did roller skate.
I learned to bake a cake.
Without a book, without any taste.
There I watched from the window,
my sisters kiss their dates.
My mother’s kitchen held a telephone.
Where my sisters stretched the cord,
and hid behind the next door.
Inside the wall of this place.
Comfort grew without the frills of lace.
Never were we late
when Mother called us in from the barn.
My mother’s kitchen is where I knew she’d be.
When I came racing home from school.
She always stood waiting for me.
Nigel Borrington 
Just another ghost estate – Callan, co Kilkenny
Ireland Ghost estates
Yesterdays Lunch time walk was a little more attractive than today’s, at some point however I wanted to post about Ireland’s and Kilkenny’s ghost estates.
The country as a whole feels like its gone through the worst of the last years since 2007, however when you take a walk around these local ghost estates you may not think so.
I took the below photograph during the building of this new estate in Callan, during July 2007.
The Callan housing estate in these pictures was the last to be built in 2007, other estates in the town being built between around 2004 and 2008. None of the houses in this estate ever sold and I heard recently that the council are about to order its demolition.
The entire area around the estate is covered in broken glass, yet there is nothing to stops any Adult,child or dog walking around this location….
Number of Irish Ghost estates by counties Carlow (15), Cavan (21), Clare (9), Cork City (6), County Cork (90), Donegal (22), Dublin City (24), Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown (10), Fingal (17), Galway City (6), Galway County (20), Kerry (21), Kildare (25), Kilkenny (21), Laoighis (15), Leitrim (21), Limerick City (0), Limerick County (11), Longford (19), Louth (17), Mayo (21), Meath (19), Monaghan (18), Offaly (6), Roscommon (35), Sligo (24), South Dublin (7), Tipperary North (16), Tipperary South (17), Waterford City (6), Waterford County (9), Westmeath (18), Wexford (24), Wicklow (11).
More images…
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Posted by nigel borrington | May 30, 2013 | Categories: Comment, Landscape | Tags: ghost estates, Ireland, irish economy, Irish photography, Kilkenny, Nigel Borrington | 25 Comments