Here’s a trade secret when it comes to writing columns. Beginning with a definition is tantamount to waving a white flag. A bad sign. It suggests the box of ideas is empty, and the column-ideas shop has a ‘closed’ sign in the window.

When Crowley’s music shop on MacCurtain Street closed ten years ago the gloom was general around the city. Now his daughter Sheena Crowley has resurrected the family shop her late father set up in the old Badly Made Books premises

The arrival of Loftus demolition crews marks the end of a long and sorry saga for the once bustling venue which has lain vacant, boarded-up and derelict for over a decade

The festival will bring workshops, discussions, and some of the leading thinkers in architecture and design to the city for the weekend

Vacancy 'a by-product of Ireland’s planning system and property market'

'There are buildings sitting empty in the middle of Skibbereen for 30 years, and it’s the middle of a housing crisis.'

Clonmel's town centre still suffers from 'an abdication of responsibility' two years after our series on dereliction, writes Neil Michael

Things are looking up for some towns in Waterford thanks to initiatives and funding, writes Neil Michael

Since the Irish Examiner's analysis of dereliction in the county, Kilrush has seen a spate of vacant or derelict buildings being bought, while Lisdoonvarna has benefited from the government’s Town and Village Renewal Scheme to combat the issue, writes Neil Michael

Neil Michael travels to three Kerry towns and assesses their efforts to reinvigorate their streetscapes

Following on from our dereliction series on Munster counties back in August 2021, Neil Michael revisits some towns in Cork to see if any progress has been made

Council conducts over 100 derelict and vacant property inspections every month

It is difficult to think of any town in Ireland that does not have a problem with dereliction.  Even some of our most prosperous places have an excessive number of vacant buildings.

Whether it’s the ruins of a military barracks in Nenagh, a collapsed building in Mitchelstown, a ghost estate in Abbeyfeale or the not so ‘Grand Hotel’ in Tramore, vacant and derelict buildings represent a legacy of neglect for our physical environment, writes Chartered Surveyor Gerard O'Toole

Using compulsory acquisition after two years is the ultimate deterrent

In the fourth of the Irish Examiner's Ireland's Empty Towns series, Ryan O'Rourke explores the contrast between County Clare's high housing demand and the decay of its streetscapes due to vacancy

Social and economic changes have allowed a deep-rooted rot of dereliction to spread through towns and villages across the country. In part three of the Irish Examiner’s Ireland’s Empty Towns series, Ryan O’Rourke visits Co Limerick

In the first in a series looking at dereliction across Munster, Neil Michael examines County Kerry, finding empty properties in towns such as Tralee, Ballybunion, and Caherciveen

In the second in a series looking at dereliction across Munster, Pádraig Hoare examines the scourge of dereliction and long-term vacancy in County Cork

The building incident was handled after an hour by emergency services.