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EXHIBITION:No stranger to controversy, having been the scourge of ‘Liveline’for past works – such as an exhibition that featured live dogs in cages – Séamus Nolan is tackling another thorny issue, the Corrib gas dispute

TWO YEARS AGO, an unexpected and unique hotel opened in Dublin. Despite being booked out every night, it remained open for just short of a month, and then closed again, its designer furniture was auctioned off and the proceeds donated to a local cause. This was Hotel Ballymun, on the top floor of Clarke Tower, one of the Ballymun’s seven towers, due for demolition that autumn. Hotel Ballymun boasted “spectacular views” and “individually designed bedrooms . . . furnished with one-off pieces”. Stripped of gaudy wallpaper and patterned carpets, and presented instead with bare plaster walls, and quirky furniture all remade from pieces found in the condemned block, Hotel Ballymun was suddenly the coolest place to be – but it was not without its problems.