AT THE Phoenix Park end of the North Circular Road in Dublin where a young woman was held captive and raped most of the houses are large three storey, red brick, once the homes of the affluent. Now the majority, often with as many as 12 or 14 doorbells, are subdivided into flats and bed sitters.
At the back of this section of the road lies O'Devaney Gardens, a large, bleak Dublin Corporation housing estate. Ringed by a handful of one and two storey cottages and houses, it is mainly composed of a dozen big, four storey, rectangular flat blocks, uniformly grey, enlivened only by tricolour graffiti.
In the middle of the estate there is a football pitch, but even this has been cemented over. There is a handful of shops at the entrance, but no other visible amenity.
It is hardly surprising that this end of the North Circular Road, where a young Swedish woman was raped yesterday morning, is already seen as a high risk area, and that suspicion for much of the local crime falls on young residents of O'Devaney Gardens.
"Crime levels are high here anyway and there is easy access to the park for them to get away," said a young woman who lives on the road. "There's a lot of car theft, all kinds of crime. I would not leave here without a car. I would not take a bus at night.
"When I moved in here, two men had just been shot up the road. I was attacked by three men in broad daylight in the children's park in the Phoenix Park one day with my son. Fortunately he is four and able to run and we were able to get away."
O'Reilly's mini market, at the Phoenix Park gate, is the local shop. Mrs Mary O'Reilly said there was a high turnover in the flats in the area. "Someone might have had a key, you wouldn't know," she said. She knew two Swedish girls who came into the shop and was concerned the victim had been one of them".
"I'd always be very careful around here. It wouldn't be out at four o'clock in the morning for love nor money. But young people sometimes take risks they shouldn't."
Mr Jerome Boussion, who is French, lives with his Spanish wife and baby in a flat on the road. "It's not a very safe area, but at least we know it," he said. "It's mainly kids messing around. I can't say it's more unsafe at night than during the day, not just women. You see kids looking at cars and it's very foolish to go out with a handbag or showing a purse.
He and his wife are leaving the country for Spain in two weeks' time. "I'm quite glad."