xaw009784 IRELAND (1947). Marino Housing Estate, Dublin, Dublin, Ireland, 1947. Oblique aerial photograph taken facing North.

The Marino Housing Estate was started in late 1924 as a government response by the fledgling Irish Free State to build 1,500 Corporation houses in an attempt to alleviate the chronic overcrowding and widespread poverty in Dublin's Inner City slums, a serious problem exacerbated by several years of civil strife. The project was inspired by the popular Garden City movement from England and lots of similar estates were developing in British cities, not least the largest public housing scheme in Europe at the time, Becontree, Essex.

The Marino Estate led to the creation of large estates over the ensuing decades, which saw the suburbanisation of Dublin, as outlying villages would be absorbed into the urban sprawl of the capital in the period following the Emergency (1939-45).

Judging from contemporary photos of the area, Marino has settled down over the past 80 years and is now a respectable suburb on the north-east side of the city centre, with fast links (via the DART) into Connolly Station (formerly Amiens Street).