Ballymun is an area on Dublin's Northside close to Dublin Airport, Ireland. Today it is undergoing a multi-billion euro renewal, with a renovated village centre, surrounded by estates of houses and apartments, with several sub-districts such as Sillogue and Poppintree.
Ballymun had a population of 22,109 at the 2006 Census.
Ballymun is served by a number of Dublin Bus routes to the city centre including the numbers 4 and 13 with the 220 travelling between Ballymun and Blanchardstown and the number 17a between Finglas and Coolock via Ballymun.
The area was also envisaged to have an underground stop on the planned Metro North (Dublin city centre to Swords) line of the Dublin Metro. However the Government have now shelved the entire 'Metro' plan due to lack of available investment capital.
Journey time from Ballymun to the airport is estimated be around ten minutes by car, and to Dublin city centre around twenty-five minutes.
The current town of Ballymun is not in the area historically called Ballymun; instead, it is in several townlands, the most significant of which was Stormanstown. The nearest village was Santry Village, property of the Domville family.
Due to what were seen to be undesirable associations, some say that the area has shrunk since the completion of the tower blocks. For instance, in the early days of Dublin City University, then called NIHE, Dublin, this institution was sometimes referred to as being in Ballymun (part of the "Ballymun Project"), or sometimes in Whitehall, whilst today it is referred to and has a postal address in Glasnevin even though it has not changed location. Indeed, much of the present day central Ballymun lies on lands once in the northern reaches of the Albert Agricultural College estate, the forerunner of the present-day Dublin City University (D.C.U.).
Streets have also been renamed. For example, Ballymun Avenue was renamed Glasnevin Avenue after a local plebiscite in the 1970s.
Ballymun Avenue was first known as Santry Avenue Extension, then Ballymun Avenue, then Glasnevin Avenue.
Among the opprobrium heaped on Ballymun, the deployment of the flats has been described by the environmental journalist Frank McDonald, in his book The Construction of Dublin, as the Irish state's 'worst planning disaster'. However, at the time of its construction, Ballymun was a sought after location and prospective tenants had to pass an interview to get housing there. There were three types of flats: seven fifteen-storey towers; nineteen eight-storey blocks; ten four-storey blocks. The flats were built in the 1960s under the authority of Neil Blaney, the then Fianna Fáil Minister for Local Government. They incorporated the best social housing practice of the time. The first tenants moved in between August 1966 and December 1966. By February 1969, when the National Building Agency's contract for Ballymun ceased and control of Ballymun was handed to Dublin Corporation (Dublin County Council didn't want it), there was a total of 3,021 dwellings in the new Ballymun, all of which was social housing under the control of the Irish state through Dublin Corporation (the Corpo).
The creation of Ballymun Regeneration Limited as a limited company controlled by Dublin City Council initiated the beginning of the demolition of the Ballymun flats and the emergence of a "new town" of Ballymun. As of 2008, six of the seven towers (Pearse, Ceannt, Macdermott McDonagh, Connolly, and Clarke) as well as three eight-storey blocks and seven four-storey blocks have been demolished by DSM, with the residents generally rehoused in new "state of the art" housing in Ballymun.
The new housing is a mixture of public, private, voluntary and co-operative housing. The "new Ballymun" is due to be completed by 2013. A documentary film entitled Ballymun Lullaby was released in February 2011 and includes scenes detailing the regeneration of Ballymun as well as its impact on the culture of its populace.
The regeneration project, despite well-publicised questions about accountability and democratic participation, has also delivered many other amenities, including reworked park areas, a major City Council office facility, Health Service facilities, a public leisure centre, student accommodation, a new hotel and renewed shopping areas.
As part of the New Ballymun, a major tree-planting project called Amaptocare has been run, with more than 600 people sponsoring around 700 trees, and providing inscription texts which are engraved on plaques near the trees. All of the trees will be identified on a glass panel at Ballymun's central plaza, which was scheduled to be complete by 2007 but is now due by 2013.
