3 and 4 Creagh lane

Apr 29, 2025 | Limerick

2 derelict houses falling apart. The left house is green, and the right one is red. Both doors and windows on ground floor are boarded with rusty metal boards. Plants grow on windows, gutters and roof. Missing slates creating holes in the roof. Walls are tagged with graffiti.

Photography of 2 houses, 3 & 4 Creagh Lane in Limerick. March 9, 2025. Credit: Don’t let me fall apart.

A rectangle ceramic tile on a green wall. The ceramic tile has a glossy white background and it's written in a rusty kind of look in celtic typo "Hold on to me"

Photography of the ceramic tile “Hold on to me” placed on the wall of the green house, 3-4 Creagh Lane in Limerick. Credit: Don’t let me fall apart.

The buildings

Derelict site number DS-006-11.

Address: 3 & 4 Creagh Lane, Limerick

Tile: Ceramic, mixed clay. Shino glaze. Reduction firing. “Hold on to me”.

Interview: Alice

Those 2 houses have been on the Derelict Site Register of Limerick City & County Council since 2011.

According to the neighbors, they have been vacant and derelict for even longer than 2011. Some saying at least 20 years. They have been seen to be “For Sale” multiple times.

 

Ground floor or a green house with door and window closed by rusty metal boards. The paint is peeling off the wall, a white graffiti between door and window and a ceramic tile on the right of the door.

Photography of the Green house, 3 & 4 Creagh Lane in Limerick. April 16, 2025. Credit: Don’t let me fall apart.

2 derelict houses falling apart. The left house is green, and the right one is red. Both doors and windows on ground floor are boarded with rusty metal boards. Plants grow on windows, gutters and roof. Missing slates creating holes in the roof. Walls are tagged with graffiti.

Photography of 2 houses, 3 & 4 Creagh Lane in Limerick. October 7, 2024. Credit: Don’t let me fall apart.

In the back they both have a garden delimited by ruins of a historical castle. Over the years, the City has intervened and entered both properties in multiple occasions to access the ruins in the garden for safety maintenance. And they boarded up the doors and ground floor windows.

In July 2024, the LCCC has made the public notice of Vesting Order. The An Bord Pleanála had given its consent to the compulsory acquisition of the land. The houses became property of the Council.

Between October 2024 and March 2025, the City intervened again to paint or change the metal boards on doors and windows.

 

Today pigeons and plants are the sole inhabitants of those houses. The birds find their way in through the holes in the roof while the plants are filling up the cracks and empty spaces.

On April 15, 2025, a new sign “For Sale” appeared, the LCCC is getting the houses back on the market.

Interview: Alice

Alice, a young Portuguese violinist, performer and music teacher who arrived in Limerick 3 years ago is telling us how the Housing Crisis has been and still is impacting her life. Interview realized on April 16, 2025 in Limerick, Ireland.