Urban Exploring in Dublin

Vauney Strahan

Hi
I would like to do a spot of urban exploring in Dublin city. I am a visual artist and my work is currently based on abandoned buildings. I am really keen to go and do some exciting research around the city, and get some source material to base my new paintings on, but I am a bit nervous of doing it on my own. Plus I think it would be more fun to do with people who have similar interests.

Apologies for starting a new thread based on such an old topic, but I have looked through older threads and I cannot find any recent posts on this. So, if anyone out there has any information about Urbex groups still active in Dublin, I would be really grateful for any information.

Thanks

pullandbang

Pigeon House in Ringsend - urbex heaven.......

Vauney Strahan

Hi Pullandbang
Thanks for replying. I have heard that's a good spot. Do you know how easy/difficult it is to gain access?

pullandbang

It's easy enough - just involves a little bit of fence climbing.

Vauney Strahan

Okay. I love fence climbing!

DoBaglietto

Hello, I'm interested to go to urban exploring.
I'm from Spain but now I'm living in Dublin. Here you can see some pictures from Barcelona about lost places: http://www.flickr.com/photos/pixelfoto/sets/72157634610696062/

jhenfors

DoBaglietto wrote: »

Hello, I'm interested to go to urban exploring.
I'm from Spain but now I'm living in Dublin. Here you can see some pictures from Barcelona about lost places: http://www.flickr.com/photos/pixelfoto/sets/72157634610696062/

Hi, you have some amazing pictures! Would you ever be interested in combining this with fashion? I'm planning to start a vintage fashion blog and am looking for a photographer to work with. Johanna

hutman

Anyone be interested in visiting some of the places in here: https://irishurbanexplorations.wordpress.com/2013/03/06/the-sentinel-dublin-city-february-2013/

Tiriel

hutman wrote: »

Anyone be interested in visiting some of the places in here: https://irishurbanexplorations.wordpress.com/2013/03/06/the-sentinel-dublin-city-february-2013/

It might be worth sending PullandBang a PM - it is possibly a good post for the URBEX forum

Stellaluna

Cork_girl wrote: »

It might be worth sending PullandBang a PM - it is possibly a good post for the URBEX forum

Irish Urban Explorations is already a member of the Urbex forum here, I'd be surprised if folks there didn't know that already!

MacDurce

If anyone could pm me with the location of the crumbling convent i'd be eternally grateful. I'm working onn building up my portfolio at the moment and this would be an amazing addition

Stellaluna

MacDurce wrote: »

If anyone could pm me with the location of the crumbling convent i'd be eternally grateful. I'm working onn building up my portfolio at the moment and this would be an amazing addition

It's a long way from Dublin if that makes a difference...

MacDurce

Stellaluna wrote: »

It's a long way from Dublin if that makes a difference...

I have a car so no but nevermind, i'll try to find it myself, thanks anyway

Just in case you think we're being unpleasant I should probably explain why most urban explorers in Ireland take such a secretive stance. If you have a read from post #9 downwards on this thread I think this explains it best.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056139506

So far due to revealing locations we've had a couple of UK explorers coming over and looting certain sites. Obviously not all are up to that but now we have to be wary because of what has happened in the past. For instance one of these guys arrived over with a crowbar and plenty of bags to store his stolen goods! In addition to that we have people scouring for locations for model/band shoots and wandering into these places without a care in the world. Inevitably security catch on due to their lack of discretion and certain places get locked up tight. Needless to say we don't want to reveal locations to copper thieves/vandals either.

So for these reasons we have to use fake names for a lot of the locations we visit. I'm happy to share location and access information with other explorers who have obviously done their own leg work before and share the same interest but there seem to be a huge amount of photographers out there who just expect to be handed information without us knowing anything about them. When doing something like this people need to be prepared to do some research of their own. It is important to encourage people who are new to the hobby and I'm happy to do this through giving advice but the amount of people that expect others to do their research for them is amazing.

This isn't a rant really aimed at yourself by the way, you have said that you're going to have a look for it yourself. I've just been annoyed by the amount of random people contacting me lately asking me just to hand out location and access information. The most important thing for us is to keep the places we visit protected from vandalism and looting and also to ensure attention isn't being drawn to the fact explorers are visiting these locations. If I offend a few random people by being secretive in order to achieve this, then so be it.

MacDurce

MacDurce wrote: »

Thank you but none of this is new information, I was asking on the off chance someone may be able to help as I have visited a few convents and churches mainly smaller in rural locations in the past. I can assure you I am not looting, nor am I not willing to do my own leg work, I have found the location myself so I longer need the help. (as you pointed out, i did say) I've found plenty of places alone, I was just struck by the beauty of this place and was hoping somebody could help me but alas i got a condesending patronising rant instead. (not aimed at myself but directly addressing me???? Perhaps you should have put this in a different thread if it was nothing to with me, just a small suggestion)
Apologies for being a "random person", you're clearly having a bad day and I am sorry about that. Obviously I asked for the location to be sent to me in a pm, not here on the site. I wasn't expecting you to post it here as i am not, as you are treating me, stupid. I was only here to find a few more friends who might be interested in visiting locations with me as a lot of the time i have to do it alone, I am not new to it and I also do not consider it a hobby, I consider it an art, nor am I anything to do with models or band shoots???????? why the **** somebody would bring a band or models into a dangerous location or how people could bring such a huge amount of gear required for such a thing into places which require illegal trespassing, usually in my experience lots of climbing and fence jumping seems like complete arrogant waffle to me tbf. I am simply a person fascinated by the aesthetic of abandoned buildings, moment frozen in time, I come from an art background not a criminal or otherwise. I didn't directly contact you either, nor did i solicite this response, I was simply asking a question, to which i got a clear, piss off reply, to which i politely offered a thank you and that was the end of it, i was simply taking a chance on location, as you know, abandoned builidings change so rapidly, this could already be gone, knocked down, damaged, so i thought id take a chance and see if anyone would be able to help, obviously i wont be quick in making friends with anyone in this community unfortunately, ill have to stick with the small group i already have tho they are a good bunch. The rest of this is redundant and not needed. But again, thank you for this information which I already knew. And as you said about not knowing anything about me, I am clearly not going to put personal information about myself on the internet, you could simply have sent me a polite private message and asked and i would have provided you with relevent info and links to my work/website/blog. Excuse my mistake, i do understand where you are coming from, an abandoned house which I loved to explore and spent quite a bit of time and effort getting into was burned down recently

Thank you,
All the best in the future
MacDurce

I'm not sure what has illicited such an aggressive response towards me. The main motivation in posting in this thread was to explain why sometimes information isn't handed out. This was in the hope you wouldn't have been offended by the information not having been posted previously, instead it seems I have managed the opposite and have managed to offend you more.

I think the intention of my post has been misconstrued. It was not an accusation at you, it was an explanation of why information sometimes isn't handed out. I assumed wrongly that you are new to this kind of thing, which is my mistake, and that is why I was giving an explanation. Therefore none of the things in my above post were an accusation to you directly. I did not accuse you of looting or not doing your own legwork. Also, at no point did I mean to be "condescending" or "patronising" or to treat you as "stupid". I had assumed wrongly that you were new to this and was trying to explain why some of us may not be helpful initially. It's very annoying to be accused of such things. If the person I was responding to was actually new to exploring I hope it wouldn't come across that way.

As for the contents of my rant, I'm not in the habit of making things up. The "arrogant waffle" you speak of actually occurred at the Pigeon House in Dublin. No fences needed to be climbed to get in there at the time. Arrogance is one trait which really annoys me, I've stopped posting on one particular urban exploration forum in the past due to the out and out elitism that existed there at that time. I always make a point never to act that way so I'm surprised I've come across that way to you. Also, going back to the rant, I never accused you of being from a criminal background either, this was not a personal attack which you seem to have taken it as.

Anyway, I shouldn't let your aggression get to me. All I'll say is, don't let my perceived arrogance stop you from posting here and don't let it tar the rest of the community with the same brush. I am but one member. The rest of the community is actually very friendly. I'm sure if you PM Pullandbang for access to the Urban Exploration forum here he'll be glad to help out. The community there is very helpful and there are posts about meet ups every so often so I'm sure it would be of interest. There are plenty of people to meet up and explore with there so don't let this exchange influence that.

pullandbang

MacDurce wrote: »

And as you said about not knowing anything about me, I am clearly not going to put personal information about myself on the internet, you could simply have sent me a polite private message and asked and i would have provided you with relevent info and links to my work/website/blog. Excuse my mistake, i do understand where you are coming from, an abandoned house which I loved to explore and spent quite a bit of time and effort getting into was burned down recently

You're a newly registered user with zero posts in this forum yet you expect people here to pass on locations to you? I don't think so.
As Inibaz says, do some legwork yourself and post a few pics here so that we can get some idea who you are and show us that you're not some nutcase skanger. Most of us here have no problem posting links to our websites/blogs etc so others can look us up and that helps us make a judgement on whether we should share info with you or not.

Tiriel

Mod note: Calm down folks, I think you are all on the same page.
MacDurce - I believe that the posts, whilst addressed to you in a response, were purely intended as an explanation as to why information is not publicly posted. Whilst (you say) you are an experienced and careful urban explorer who respects locations and their sensitivity, not everyone that reads these forums has the same intentions.

This is a public forum and anything written here, is open to be used by everyone who may stop by.

I'm sure that others would be interested in joining you on a visit etc. but most people here do get to know each other and post the photos from trips online in the form of a blog or flickr etc. As mentioned, it allows people to get to know each other and build trust.

Best of luck and safe exploring.

No further sniping - anyone!