Many Dubs moved there a decade ago to get more house for their money – and now they'd never leave Wicklow. SANDRA O'CONNELLexplains why she and other families fell in love with living in Wicklow, and looks at what's for sale now
MY TASK is to write about the pros and cons of living in Wicklow but to be honest, I’m struggling with the cons.
My husband and I moved to Wicklow town 10 years ago simply because it offered so much more house for our money than south Dublin. The bonus is that it has turned out to be a terrific place to raise kids.
The main reason is sports.
I’m constantly amazed that Wicklow doesn’t have the reputation of a Kerry or a Kilkenny when it comes to sporting prowess because the county capital has the sportiest youth population I’ve ever come across.
Everywhere you look drifts of them are clattering back from football training or pounding the roads with the athletics club. They’re doing laps in the pool in winter and taking water safety lessons in the harbour in summer. They’re rowing or golfing or surfing in Magheramore. Often all in the same day.
In summer the first thing you see when you enter the town are hordes of kids playing mini-tennis, eight to a court so that as many of them as possible can enjoy a game.
In fact, the big concern for kids round here right now is which float to join for the St Patrick’s Day parade – classmates, football team or hip-hop troupe?
Then there are all the ad hoc benefits that come from living in a seaside town, such as heading straight from school to the beach in summer or waiting for the stormiest weather possible to walk up to the lighthouse in winter.
It isn’t just the kids who get a kick out of the outdoors either. At any hour of the day the roads boast a stream of adults taking their daily constitutional.
The town’s hugely expensive new port relief road, on which, thanks to the downturn, you’d be more likely to be hit by tumbleweed than traffic, is known locally as “Big Butt Boulevard”, so popular is it for walking.
We walkers take the nickname in good part (and long jackets) because it is meant good humouredly. And that’s the other thing about Wicklow; it’s a very friendly town. It may be that being a port makes a populace historically comfortable with new people but whatever the reason, it’s one of the first things visitors notice.
And it is noticeable even in the face of a downturn that is taking its toll. You see evidence of the recession everywhere, from the dads looking shell-shocked at the school gates to the “to let” signs multiplying on the main street and the alarming speed at which new shops fail.
Concomitant with this, however, is a keener-than-ever awareness among residents of the need to shop locally to keep the town alive.
News that Tesco here is to double in size has given rise to fears of further pressure on already struggling independent retailers but not everyone agrees.
“It won’t take shoppers off the Main Street so much as it will keep shoppers in the town, which is good for everybody. At the moment very many shoppers head up to Dundrum or down to Bridgewater in Arklow,” says Eugene Dooley, of auctioneers Dooley Poynton.
Other developments in the town include a new secondary school, due for completion next year, plus plans for a much-needed cinema and a perhaps less-needed McDonald’s.
On the residential property front, while luxury houses aren’t shifting, there is still demand for three-bedroom semis. Demand for holiday properties has collapsed entirely, says Dooley.
The fact that the town doesn’t have, relative to the rest of the country at least, a huge oversupply of new housing developments means things are still ticking over for auctioneers, although at least two have shut up shop since the downturn. As is the case elsewhere, however, mortgage finance is like hens’ teeth.
“Only guards, teachers and other public sector workers are getting mortgages,” said one estate agent.
As it happens, the biggest employer in the town is the County Council, which may account for the fact that there is still some sales activity here. Dooley Poynton closed five sales in January, for example, traditionally one of the property market’s worst months.
“We are starting to see some signs of recovery, not in terms of prices – which may in fact have a little more to fall this year – but in terms of interest. Viewing numbers are starting to rise again significantly,” says Brian Clarke of Clarke Auctioneers.
As always, this demand is coming primarily from young families looking for a cheaper alternative to Dublin, who are prepared to put in extra commuting time for the sake of a bigger house and a sea view.
“Wicklow’s greatest appeal has always been not just proximity to Dublin but having the beaches of Brittas Bay beside you and the mountains of Glendalough just minutes away,” says Clarke. Amenities such as these are, thankfully, independent of economic cycles.
Catherine O’Reilly, an estate agent with Sherry Fitzgerald O’Gorman in the town, says that when she first moved to the area, two decades ago, “it felt like we were leaving civilisation”, even though she was only coming from Greystones. She, too, has the zeal of the convert.
“People go out of their way to be nice down here. It’s very noticeable and I hear it all the time from people moving down from Dublin,” she says. “Prices are way down – €500,000 is the new €1 million in Wicklow – but what people always remark on too is the quality of the builds down here, the small size of the estates and just how much more space they get for their money.”
