If you believe the legend you'll know that The Children of Lir spent their first 400 years as swans on Lake Derravarragh, near Mullingar, one of the earliest-known settlements in the country. Better known these days as the home town of singer Joe Dolan, Mullingar is enjoying a population revival boosted by inflated Dublin house prices and disenchantment with city living. Emigrants are returning from England and around the town at weekends you are as likely to hear "Dub" or cockney accents as the soft native drawl.
Joanne Egan and Stephen Callaghan decided to move to Mullingar because they were reluctant to take on an enormous mortgage. They bought a four-bedroom semi on the new Lakepoint estate on the Dublin side of the town for £122,000 last July, expecting that some day in the not too distant future they will be able to move closer to the city. "We didn't want to break our backs. I'm from a big house so I didn't want to spend a hundred and thirty grand on a dog box in somewhere like Clonee," says Joanne.
Moving to Mullingar means putting up with a journey of up to four hours every day for a gentler pace of life at weekends. There are good facilities for young people and an abundance of outdoor pursuits from sailing to horse riding. Families and singles with a yen for openair sports will gain most from such a major move. There's a yacht club, sub-aqua club, canoeing, fishing, horse-riding and golf, along with soccer and GAA. It also has the usual rural town activities such as amateur dramatics and music. Mullingar is at the apex of three hauntingly beautiful lakes, Owel, Ennell and Derravarragh and the Royal Canal winds in a semi-circle around the centre of the town.
Joanne and Stephen find, with all the travel, there's little time to avail of all these amenities. They don't even know many of their neighbours. "There are loads of young couples at Lakepoint but they're never there. All the people disappear around seven in the morning and they traipse back home at 7.30 or 8 p.m. We go into the Druid's Chair for our dinner sometimes and we hope to start socialising soon. When you move out of Dublin you just love getting back here after all the hustle and bustle," says Joanne.
Despite the influx of young, first-time buyers from the city, Mullingar is still essentially a prosperous agricultural town, one where Range Rovers and wax jackets are not out of place. It's a good shopping town too and parking is difficult. The bypass, opened in 1994, solved some of the problems, but trucks travelling north-south still clog up the narrow streets.
Industry is growing, and business parks are springing up on the town's outskirts to meet the increased demand. Lakepoint Retail and Business Park on the Dublin side of the town will start trading this autumn with Atlantic Homecare confirmed as the anchor tenant. A new phase of housing at Lakepoint is due to come on the market early next year with the Hooke & MacDonald agency.
Employment prospects in the town are excellent. Established industries Van Nelle and Data Packaging have been joined by IT company Foxtec and GMAC Commercial Mortgage Corporation. With an expanding population - almost 17,000 four years ago and currently estimated at around 23,000 - Mullingar could do with a third-level institution. A decentralised Government department based in Mullingar is one of the main aims of the local Chamber of Commerce.
The best property value seems to be in larger four and five-bedroom detached houses, which can be bought for well under £200,000. You will pay around £100,000 for the average three-bed semi in a fairly new estate and just under this for older semis without the frills but closer to town. A three-bedroom bungalow on half an acre will set you back about £150,000. Period red-bricks around the town centre - costing around £80,000 needing work - are like gold dust.
For romantics, James McDonnell & Co has a restored stone farmhouse on three-quarters of an acre on the Dublin side of Mullingar priced over £200,000 and Sherry FitzGerald Davitt & Davitt is selling a very pretty thatched cottage with two bedrooms and stables for around £85,000. "Money no object" buyers could consider Midleton Park, a 28-bedroom Georgian house on 12 acres with an original Turner conservatory and an asking price of £1.7 million through Gunne Residential.
One in 10 Mullingar residents make their way to the Dublin every day, according to a recent report in the Westmeath Examiner. Locally known as the "Calcutta Express", the train with its restricted schedule and overcrowding is the least popular option. The Maynooth section of the line is currently being upgraded. Barring disruption, the 6.40 a.m. gets into Dublin Connolly station by 8.26. Going home in the evening, the 5.15 p.m. train arrives in Mullingar at 6.48 and the 6.20 at 7.30 p.m. Commuters can buy a weekly ticket for £31 or pay £36 for a ticket which is interchangeable with the bus. Buses are cheaper and more plentiful. The 6.15 a.m. bus gets into Dublin's Busarus by 8 a.m. and one leaving at 6.30 a.m. arrives in the city by nine o'clock. There is also a 5 p.m. bus back to Mullingar, arriving at 6.30 p.m. The 5.30 arrives at 7 p.m. and the 7 p.m. from Dublin gets in at 8.30 p.m. A 10-journey bus ticket costs £23. Bus travellers should add half an hour to all arrival times just in case, as traffic through Enfield is invariably stop-start.
Commuting by car is more flexible. Again, Enfield is the worst bottleneck, particularly on the homeward journey when Mullingar and Sligo-bound traffic is often held up by cars branching off to other destinations. Outside rush hour, it takes just over an hour to drive to the city from Mullingar. Morning and evening, add at least 30 minutes for getting through Enfield and the Dublin suburbs. The entire district of Mullingar was sold in 1858 for £120,000 to Colonel F S Greville - about the current price of a four-bed semi in one of the new estates. James Joyce, a frequent visitor to the town, apprenticed his Ulysses heroine Molly Bloom to a photographer's shop in the Main Street. Some say Mullingar means "Carr's Well" but a more fanciful derivation is "the lefthandwise mill", after the story of St Colman's confrontation with the steward of a local landlord. The story goes that he turned the mill wheel to divide the corn so the church got the wheat and the steward the barley.
It was a monastic town of some importance, with a main thoroughfare - Austin Friars Street - named after the Augustinians who settled here in the 13th century. The Dominicans gave their name to Dominic Street. The 78th Highlanders were the first occupants of Columb Barracks in 1819. Former Taoiseach Charles Haughey lived in the married quarters when his army commandant father transferred from Castlebar when Mr Haughey was two years of age.
