Draft talk:Ballymun Flats

Quick comments

As requested on Discord, a few quick thoughts from reading through:

• A solid paragraph or two of background would be good; there are probably books or journal articles for some of those points

• gonna come back to do this soon. Ive seen a few source mention the collapse of tenements in the inner city (that could probably have its own article! Some people died and this article shows that it's notable as an event with lasting impact. I'll probably do an article on Housing in Dublin City at some point) So, im gonna do one paragraph on what Ballymun is, and that it was mostly farmland, (Somerville-Woodward's Ballymun: A History has good coverage on Ballymun's pre-flat history, so I'll probably continue to cite it more) and one on the tenement collapse that led to the flats' construction.

• Tell us where Ballymun is

• will do in the paragraph on what Ballymun is. I'll also say in the lead that the flats were X in Ballymun, a suburb on the Northside of Dublin, Ireland (I'll decide what to do with the lead more when the rest of the article is nearer to completion, Ive been told before that it's good to write the lead last.

• Don't start a sentence with a numeral (MOS:NUMNOTES); either spell it out or recast the sentence

• I believe that I've fixed all of this.

• "Housing Scheme" (linked to Local Authority Accommodation) could do with a brief explanation (don't rely on the link to explain it)

• Gonna add this to the lead and remove that link

• were originally proposed to Dublin Corporation (also use active voice wherever possible)

• Attributed to Blaney

• Who is Neil Blaney?

• My mistake, I added that quote from mcdonald recently and forgot that he wasnt mentioned that early

• Use single quote marks for quotes within quotes (MOS:QWQ).

• Fixed

• Is the location of the meeting important? Ie, would things have been any different if the meeting was held somewhere else?

• No its not important, removed it

• The committee recommended that Dublin Corporation purchase the land for municipal housing The purpose seems to have been established above.

• cut municipal housing bit

• lowering their houses value houses needs an apostrophe

• done

• You mention prefab/system building twice (and link it both times)

• changed second mention to just say "the houses"

• Instead of quoting "allayed" and linking to Wiktionary, use a more common term without the quote marks.

• changed to alleviated

• On 22 May, it was decided passive voice again and

• fixed

• with the remaining amount of acres being purchased in intervals Several things: don't use "with" to join two clauses like that, you can't have an "amount of acres" (acres are quantifiable—rule of thumb: amount of sugar, number of cubes) but you can have an amount of land, and try to avoid changing tense mid-sentence (which the "with" forces).

• Is this better? Dublin Corporation decided on 22 May that they would take over 45 acres on 1 June for £100,000, purchasing the rest in intervals.

• 400. one-room; 450, two-rooms; 500. three-rooms and 1.650, four rooms in 3,000 what's going on with the punctuation here?

• copied from the source and I forgot to fix the formatting. My mistake, fixed now.

• vote against it, with one other person "with" again

• I think all I have to do here is cut 'with'.

• Dissent is probably a common-enough term that you don't need the Wiktionary link

• Alrighty

• Not sure it's worth naming Mullen unless his name comes up again later; if not, it feels like an unnecessary detail

• cut their name

• heavily criticised them criticised who?

• clarified

• In June, the Government of Ireland announced that the dwellings were being put "out to tender" and called for all "qualified interests" to send in a proposal there's a lot of detail there when the only important part is that the government put it out for tender. This is the sort of concision that makes the difference between GA's "reasonably well written" and FAC's "professional standard".

• Cut everything after out to tender, removed quotes on that too

• Not sure the link to government agency is helpful.

• Although not many people, I wouldnt be surprised if someone didnt know what a government agency was, dont see any need to remove it

• "proposals recieved from certain building interests". You need a ref straight after a direct quote. End of sentence is fine but it needs to be close (the intro of WP:V)

• fixed

• Although these systems were yet to be approved for use. That doesn't quite work as a standalone sentence.

• Merged with prior sentence

That's all I have time for for now. :) HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 21:41, 13 May 2026 (UTC)

@HJ Mitchell: Addressed all your feedback, thanks for agreeing to do this, I appreciate it! Finnfrog99 (talk) 19:44, 14 May 2026 (UTC)

Ballymun Flats - initial thoughts

Hi Finnfrog99, you may have seen that I've made a start proofreading the first few sections and have made small tweaks throughout. It's already shaping up to be a really comprehensively researched and genuinely fascinating article, so I thought I'd share a few early thoughts as you continue developing it:

• Lead - as you expand the article, the lead will eventually need to give a concise overview of the whole thing, including the flats' ultimate fate. Some of what's currently in the lead is great material, but probably better placed in the main body later on (especially parts of the second and third paragraphs). As a small aside, the bolded tower names might work better tucked into a note rather than taking up space in the lead.
• Paragraph length - you'll have noticed I've suggested breaking up some of the very long paragraphs. Shorter, more digestible chunks make it much easier for readers to follow the narrative. For example, "Construction and first tenants" could comfortably be divided into:
  • Early construction
  • Delays and disputes
  • First occupation
  • Expansion
• Redlinks - there are quite a few dotted throughout. Personally, I'd keep only those where a future article is genuinely likely and remove the rest for now. They can always be reintroduced later once the pages exist. At the moment, the mix of red and blue links can be a little visually distracting.
• Detail - the level of research is impressive, but you might consider trimming some of the day‑by‑day detail to create a tighter, more encyclopaedic narrative. GA reviewers tend to prefer summary style rather than 'exhaustive reporting'.
• Balance of content - the article understandably highlights a lot of the problems the estate faced (strikes, heating failures, rubbish chutes, Ronan Point concerns, discrimination, lack of amenities). All of this is well‑sourced and important, but GA reviewers will also expect coverage of community life — and you already have great material on drama groups, youth clubs, swimming clubs, the Satellite journal, etc. Likewise, if later regeneration is relevant, that would help round out the picture.
• Images - for GA, all images will need to be freely licensed or have a clear fair‑use rationale. Just something to keep in mind as you add them.

That's all I have for now. Do ping me another message if you have any further queries or when you get it to a stage you'd like a fresh pair of eyes on it again. Mmberney (talk) 15:51, 3 September 2026 (UTC)