Barracks Square Estate - Whatever Happed to St.Michaels Estate (66 mins) 2017

Barracks Square Estate directed and produced by film maker Joe Lee, is a 66 minute documentary film that presents a story of life as lived in one part of Dublin over the last 200 years at, Richmond Barracks, Keogh Square and St Michael’s Estate, the same place but with different names. This part of Inchicore has been home to a population of about 1500 to 2000 Dubliners and others throughout that time. The site has been witness to many hidden currents and discarded stories in Irish history, including an exploration of the prominent role of the British Army in 19th century Irish life. It was also the place where the vast majority of Irish rebels were held after the 1916 rising. Later the barracks was transformed into tenement housing, the film depicts the struggles and resilience of the people who lived in Keogh Square for the first 50 years of the new Irish state. The third and final part of the film shows the demolition and replacement of the old tenement buildings with modernist tower blocks in the early 1970s and the stories of people who experienced the worst of economic recession and the devastation of the drugs crisis in Dublin from the 1980s onwards and the impact of these forces on the fate of St Michael’s Estate. The primary storytellers in Barracks Square Estate are local people who have lived, worked or have close ties to the area. The film is set in the context of the international financial crash of the late 2010s, the ongoing Irish housing crisis and the delayed regeneration plans for St Michael’s Estate.