Finglas Voices

A joint DCU-Finglas for Diversity production

Finglas is a nondescript region on Dublin’s north side, with row after row of small stucco houses and brick entryways. When Finglas gets in the news, it’s mostly because of crime, violence or the high rate of drug usage. For people living there, though, what’s important is its strong sense of community and unique history. Until fifty years ago, Finglas was a small village in the countryside with just one street. In the mid-1900’s, tenements in Dublin began falling down, and Dublin City Corporation built thousands of homes outside the city. Finglas was one of half a dozen communities that sprang up virtually overnight, bringing with it the predictable woes of inadequate shops, schools, and churches. Fifty years later, the way that modern Finglas was born still resonates with older residents and shapes people’s sense of identity.

Adar Cohen and Daniel Preysman, two of this year’s Mitchell Scholars, worked with MA in Journalism students at Dublin City University and with Finglas For Diversity, a local community group, to produce this oral history.

Project director: Kerry Lawless. Reporters: Ian Carey, Adar Cohen, Hannah-Louise Dunne, John Hennessy, Brid Higgins NÌ Chinneide, Aisling O’Brien, Daniel Preysman. With help from St Brigid’s National School, the Patrician College, the Finglas Cabra Council for Older People, Project West, St Helena’s Family Resource Centre, Pavee Point Travellers Centre, and Gaelscoil UÌ Earc·in.