Google released Street View Ireland last week (go to Google Maps – maps.google.ie – zoom in on Ireland and drag the yellow man in the top left onto the map).  One of the side effects is that they have captured the full extent of the housing bust as their cars drove round every road in the country in spring 2009 (see here for examples).  Having looked at the startling Google Earth images at this blog of the housing bust in the US, I thought I’d capture a few Google Earth images of unfinished estates in Ireland.  It’s actually very easy to spot under-construction estates in the areas of the country with high resolution imagery – simply zoom into a town and they stand out.  Given that the imagery used in Google Earth can be a little dated (average three years old) some of these estates will now be completed, but many of them remain in a still under-construction state and have been joined by others.  Here are eight of them.

Rob Kitchin