Flats and Cottages

A city gripped by an ever-worsening housing crisis. An expensive and insecure private rental sector. Rogue landlords running overcrowded and poorly maintained flats. Central and local government struggling to keep up with ever-rising housing needs.

This is not the Dublin of 2025 but that of 1932, the year Herbert Simms was appointed the capital’s first dedicated housing architect. Over the next sixteen years, he spearheaded one of the most ambitious public housing programmes in the history of the state, delivering 17,000 flats and cottages in the inner-city and emerging suburbs.

Clearing some of Dublin’s worst tenements, Simms and his team gave modern homes to generations of working-class Dubliners, transforming not only their lives but the fabric of the city.

In this visually striking book, Eoin Ó Broin and Mal McCann utilise prose, photography, and interviews to tell the story of Herbert Simms’ work during these tumultuous years and give voice to the history and experiences of today’s residents of his buildings. Flats and Cottages also examines the lessons that can be applied to our own contemporary housing crisis to ensure that working people have access to decent and affordable homes.