Abandoned Places

[Our Nail Loney]

Found this on another forum, think its class... Would love to visit some of the places in the pictures...

http://www.dirjournal.com/info/abandoned-places-in-the-world/

Reminded me of this site which I had saved in my favourites, these people go about old abandoned hospitals, orphanages etc and take pics, prime locations for horror films!!

http://www.28dayslater.co.uk/forums/

[midLouth]

www.abandonedireland.com

[Orior]

Great link

[Gabriel_Hurl]

http://www.28dayslater.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=26584

Ardboe's on there - the old RAF/USSF air base

[Lecale2]

Interesting.

[Orior]

The Village area of south Belfast should be included. All the people have left and its been overrun by baboons.

[longrunsthefox]

There is tumble weed blowing through Kerry's trophy cabinet 

[Canalman]

For me anyway, there is an interesting remnants of an old mining hamlet in Glendalough........ inhabited I believe by mainly Cornish miners. Some mining ruins also in Glenmalure.

[StGallsGAA]

Mullen on the Tyrone-Monaghan border used to be one.  Great to see it's being re-inhabited and by some children of the familes that originally left it too.

[spectator]

Thanks for posting that link. One of the locations featured, Wittenoom in Western Oz, brought back a lot of memories for me.

I first heard about it at a Midnight Oil concert in Darwin when they sang their song Blue Sky Mine which addresses the issue of compensation for ex-miners working there, who were exposed to fatal doses of blue asbestos. In the intro to the song, lead singer Peter Garrett explained that thousands of workers had been enticed to work in the blue asbestos mine in Wittenoom from the 40's and 50's onwards, with the promise of residency for many poor southern europeans if they emigrated out there to fill the requirement for miners. The dangers of blue asbestos were apparently well known back then, but were kept quiet by the authorities in the WA state government at the time, as they desperately wanted to start trying to establish settlements in the mineral rich but remote Pilbara region in the northern half of the state.

Lang Hancock found the blue asbestos seam originally while prospecting for iron ore & carried a hell of a lot of clout in WA back in those days. Blue asbestos was like a type of 'super-asbestos' & was in great demand at the time. It was very profitable to mine the stuff, even in a back-of-beyond place like Wittenoom. Eventually Hancock sold the business to CSR who carried on mining there.

The effects of mining asbestos on miners became more widely known understood in a health and safety sense, but CSR continued exposing miners to it there. When miners later started dying from a horrible type of lung cancer - mesothelioma, which is contracted through exposure to asbestos - more and more questions started to be asked. In time, it became impossible to cover up the awful, slow, suffering deaths of the stricken miners & the mine was closed down by the company.

The state authorities, aware of their abdication of their responsibilities and fearful of being sued and embarrassed, set about closing down the town & removing all traces that it ever existed. When I went there in the early 90's the compensation issue was to the fore. There were still 46 people living in Wittenoom. The oldest lady was 85 years old, the only child was 13 years old. Most normal state and municipal services had been withdrawn at that stage. There was one shop left in the town which was supplied intermittently, a post office, a town pub, a bush fire volunteer service and an Anglican church of all things.

The people were determined to carry on their fight for compensation for the remaining sufferers of mesothelioma & to continue living in the town they called home, in spite of the authorities best efforts to remove them. They were quite remarkable people. The surrounding Hammersley Ranges and  Wittenoom gorges while not as well known are magnificent & still draw some adventurous visitors to the area, despite being well off the beaten track and the area carrying a health warning due to mine tailings that remain scattered around. I heard there was a BBC programme on Wittenoom aired a year or two ago, which might be available on the BBC I-Player still? It'd be interesting to hear are any miners surviving still, how many people are living there now & what state the town is in?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByRbiyxlJJk&feature=related    Midnight Oil - Blue SkyMine

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CSR_Limited                                      CSR Wittenoom Controversy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bK1anHtSkY                           Wittenoom Gorges - The Miracle Mile

[Our Nail Loney]

Was looking through some of the old abandoned hospitals and asylums there on the 28 Days Later forum, they are freaky as f**k.

Would any of you have the balls to go about them at night? I think I would be shitting myself.

The first link has some interesting stories, I hadn't heard about the Australian place before reading it, and also read up more about Chernobyl because of it...

[Denn Forever]

Just saw the convent in Killeshandra in Cavan.  Surprised that it was never bought up in the Celtic Tiger.  Remember going on a retreat there with my school (free classes, yippee).  It is in a awful state.

[leenie]

i was thinking the same about the convent.... it looks ideal for a hotel...

if i win the euro millions (would need to be very high) i'm going to buy it! wonder who owns it now?

[ludermor]

http://www.mayonews.ie/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=4707&Itemid=38
http://www.castlebar.ie/mayo_historical_and_archaeological_society/1927_Drowning_Tragedy.shtml

Inishkea Islands off the mullet pennisala, north mayo. They were abandoned after 10 fishermen drowned in the big storm of 1927 ( 9 more were drowned in lacken near killala, 9 were drowned in Inish Bofin and 26 died in Cleggan In Galway)

[Capt Pat]

The whlae vommit being sold as perfume, brilliant, changed times indeed eh