June 1963 was, in many ways, a watershed moment for social housing in Ireland. On June 2, two elderly residents, Leo and Mary Marples, died when the tenement building they lived in on Bolton Street in Dublin suddenly collapsed. Just 10 days later, on June 12, two young girls, Linda Byrne and Marion Vardy, were killed while passing by when three tenement buildings on Fenian Street collapsed without warning. These terrible tragedies prompted a public outcry and demanded a swift political response. Slum clearance became a government priority and the solution was believed to be the large-scale construction of housing…

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