The Fatima Mansions complex in Dublin is about to be transformed, and in its rubble will be buried millions of memories, writes Patrick Butler.

From last Wednesday to yesterday the Dublin Horse Show took place in Ballsbridge. Over the same time period the Fatima Mansions Regeneration Festival was staged.

As the word "Ballsbridge" conjures up one image of Dublin, so the words "Fatima Mansions" conjure up another. The contrast could not be more stark.

There are big changes, however, in Fatima Mansions and its flats complex, which has held an important - if not always savoury - position in the social fabric of the city. It is undergoing a previously unimaginable reconstitution.

As Joe Donohue, a team leader with Fatima Groups United, which organised the festival says: "The landscape is going to change radically."

Obliteration might be a more apt term. The regeneration of the 11-acre site, which will cost in the region of €130 million, includes the demolition of the existing 15 blocks, to be replaced by houses (to which existing residents will be transferred) and private apartments. This work will be carried out over five to seven years.

Marking this radical change was one of the key themes of this, the fourth, Regeneration festival.

"It's the most significant festival yet because it marks the end of the old Fatima," says Joe Donohue. As if to emphasise this, and by pure coincidence, the demolition crew that will knock down five empty blocks of flats this year arrived on site the day before the festival began.

Along with the events that were arranged for the sheer fun of them - five-a-side football, Sumo wrestling, hip-hop dancing, a treasure hunt - there were the more solemn presentations, The Fatima Wake and The Fatima Story.

The Fatima Wake was the culmination of a number of meetings in which young and old residents, from four generations, met every Wednesday to reflect and record their personal histories. This involved producing postcards, writing memoirs and collecting photographs of family and friends. Through this process every stage in the development of Fatima was represented.

One memoir, by Alice McLoughlin, read: "It's happening at last, the long threat is over. Fatima is coming down. In its rubble will be buried millions of memories, good and bad."

While nobody criticises the physical reconstruction of Fatima Mansions, those who live in the flats, especially older residents, are keen to remind others that, over the 55 years it has been in existence, there were, and are, other sides to Fatima Mansions besides the drug-pushers and petty criminals that have grabbed newspaper headlines.

Annie Donohue, who has lived in the flats since 1965 and has been participating in the Wake, believes the passing of the old Fatima should not mean a passing away of what held people together through the worst times.

"It's a community with a lot of spirit, and that we are trying to hold on to," she says.

Annie and her neighbours attended a ceremony held in the community centre on the opening day of the festival in which a list containing all the bad things that people expressed about the old Fatima - loss, fear, grief, despair, pain, poverty, death, violence and neglect - was ritually burned. The idea was to leave behind the things that the residents did not want to bring with them.

One aspect of Fatima life locals are keen to carry forward is the familiarity that living in such a place brings. This was highlighted in The Fatima Story, the core of which was a photographic exhibition by a former resident, Tom McLoughlin.

McLoughlin lived in Fatima until he was 29, but returned there every day for the following 15 years until his mother died four years ago. At an early stage he realised much of what was happening in the flats was not being visually documented. For the past 30 years, with the enthusiasm of an amateur and a passion for his subject, McLoughlin has been coming back to the flats to take photographs of those who live there.

"I didn't want my children not to know all the people that were before them," says McLoughlin, who now lives in Clondalkin.

Several hundred of his photographs formed the exhibition, So Who Do You Know? The idea was that residents would come along and find the faces of friends and neighbours that they have known over the years. It is hoped that all the material gathered for the festival - photographs and memoirs - will form an archive. This will be an August Fatima residents are unlikely to forget.