Years ago, in 2006, this column coined the expression ‘ghost estates’ after a drive from Castlebar to Dublin, where I saw row after row of these estates being built outside provincial villages. That year, over 90,000 houses were built in Ireland. I had no...
In my 2007 book ‘The Generation Game’, I wrote “Anglo Irish bank is little more than an out-of-control hedge fund leveraging themselves and their clients into property”. The lawyers for the publishers insisted that the name Anglo be dropped,...
I’ve had a soft spot for Limerick since the time a pretty Laurel Hill teenager from Ennis Road whispered to a freckly, 15-year-old redhead outside the ceili at Irish college that she thought he was special. These are the events you remember from your teenage...
The frenzy has started again. Six years after a property boom practically destroyed our economy, we are at the same nonsense again. When are we ever going to learn that buying and selling over-priced houses to each other is not going to make us rich, but will make us...
What is the true state of the housing market in Ireland and what does it mean for you? There’s a huge amount of hype, speculation and sales talk doing the rounds and in this cacophony and noise, it is hard to get a true picture. One way to look at the property...
It was a morning only a taxi driver could love. Yesterday, walking down the Western Road, past the Pres’ Cork lads shuffling towards school, the River Lee was swollen and moving rapidly. It only took seconds for a large fallen branch to be swept along from one...
