by 
THE GASWORKS [SOUTH LOTTS ROAD DUBLIN]
South Lotts is a small area to the south of the River Liffey in inner city Dublin 4, one km east of Dublin City Centre, Ireland. It was created following the embankment of the River Liffey in 1711 between the city and Ringsend, thereby reclaiming the marshes as North and South Lotts. It is at the westernmost end of Ringsend, overlapping with the Grand Canal Dock area, but is generally accepted to be within Ringsend.
The district originally referred to 51 reclaimed plots of land directly behind City Quay sold to the highest bidder in 1723. A detailed history of South Lotts is given in the 2008 book Dublin Docklands – An Urban Voyage by Turtle Bunbury [some of my photographs are included in the book], in the chapter “The Docklands – South Lotts & Poolbeg”.
Converting an old gas storage unit (gasometer) into apartments was a nice idea but things did not work out as the original developers had hoped.
Currently the complex is attractive and well maintained.
The Gasworks apartment complex built by developer Liam Carroll became one of the more interesting symbols of the Irish property crash and it went on sale about seven years ago for €43 million which is about €205,000 per apartment which is revealing considering that a friend of mine purchased his apartment for about €700,000 plus an additional €40,000. I m not fully sure if the purchase went through [or if he was bought out when the plan was to convert it into a hotel] but the last time I met him he was still living in the complex but it was a subject that he did not want to discuss even though he now likes living there.
I believe that the complex is now known as the The Alliance and it was constructed within the metal shell of the old gasometer which had been on the site since 1885.
A gas holder, or gasometer, is a large container in which natural gas or town gas is stored near atmospheric pressure at ambient temperatures. The volume of the container follows the quantity of stored gas, with pressure coming from the weight of a movable cap. Typical volumes for large gas holders are about 50,000 cubic metres (1,800,000 cu ft), with 60 metres (200 ft) diameter structures.
Gas holders now tend to be used for balancing purposes, to ensure gas pipes can be operated within a safe range of pressures, rather than for actually storing gas for later use.
