In November 2017 Laura Hopes, Maud Hendricks, Bernie O’Reilly of Outlandish Theatre Platform (OT) began a collaborative enquiry into the ‘ruins’ of Dublin 8. They considered Dublin 8 as a ‘theatre of ruins’ where lives unfold and are performed. During preparatory research into Maud and Bernie’s sense of their home’s, Dublin 8, constant ‘not-quite-becoming’, different iterations or chronologies of the term ‘ruin’ emerged: the past, present, viable and anticipatory ruin. Within the specifically Irish context of the regeneration and gentrification of Dublin 8, they bore witness to the romanticisation of the run-down. This trend, lionised both within romantic literature of the past and the ‘vintage’ trends of today, is entangled with the potential for gentrification, an economic invitation withheld from many, and the glamorisation of ruins ignores those humans subject to the economy’s vicissitudes.