Toxic Recurrences

In Donegal County, Ireland over 30,000+ homes are crumbling due to the failure and neglect of a self-regulated construction industry without a comprehensive independent audit system or inspection system. Over a decade of delayed governmental response has left some homeowners living in uninhabitable conditions with severe dampness and mold, electrical risks, structural instability, severe cracking, and crumbling homes. Even low estimates of the cost to address just the housing aspect of the crisis exceed 3.2 billion euros. And the current governmental scheme for redress is rooted in political toxicity—with governmental corruption, “laughable science,” and stalled bureaucracy. Often referred to as Ireland's 'forgotten county,' and home to the largest land border between Ireland and Northern Ireland, Donegal has faced devastating government policies resulting in years of regional isolation, economic neglect, and “exhausted” infrastructures (Fortun 2014). Rooted in 12- months of ethnographic research with action groups in Donegal, this article aims to highlight the environmental, political, and other intersecting injustices Donegal residents face in campaigning for full compensation. Many scholars have theorized toxicity in terms of repetition and exposure (Morgan and Fortun 2020) and this article characterizes the current scheme as “yet another failed” redress scheme as many in Donegal call it. Not only are these residents subject to toxic exposures such as mold in their homes, but they have been repeatedly subject to failed governance. It asks: for defective concrete homeowners, how does the increasing threat of living in crumbling homes, as well as navigating complex government redress schemes, affect their daily lives, relationships, and understandings of both home and governance?