Village on edge of Dublin sprawl copes with rapid expansion

Stamullen in Co Meath is at first sight like many other villages on the periphery of Dublin.

Winding country roads without footpaths lead past newly-built suburban estates to a main street where many of the people appear to be working on nearby building sites.

Stamullen is not just a typical example of Dublin sprawl; it is the most glaring. Three out of four of the 873 private homes in Stamullen were built in the five years to 2006, the Central Statistics Office revealed yesterday.

But despite the rapid house building, locals - older and more recent - believe Stamullen is a good place to live.

John and Therese McQuillan have been living in the Mountain View Estate for 30 years, where they contribute to a tidy districts endeavour which has won the estate numerous awards.

While construction of the new homes has been disruptive, they believe the changes are broadly for the better. "When we came there were more fields around here all right," said John looking at houses across the road.

He and Therese point to a recently-completed apartment block down the road and remark that, until recently, Stamullen was a typical rural village.

"There was one pub, one shop, a church, the old school and the post office," said Therese, before noting with a laugh, "that's still the way it is". There used to be a bus service taking people to Drogheda to shop on a Saturday afternoon "but I think it has stopped", said John. The couple use the family car to shop or travel outside Stamullen.

The building boom has provided homes for the couple's adult children, Rebecca and Jason, who both live with their families locally. A 16-room extension is being provided for the local national school, and while John and Therese said they hardly knew anyone in the local pub at weekends, they added: "You can't stand in the way of progress".

However, the community's dependence on private cars is annoying to Ronnie Lynch who works in the supermarket. Ronnie, originally from Portlaoise, used to rent in Raheny before moving to Stamullen.

She too likes the town but said "you have to have a car to live here". Ronnie said the lack of footpaths meant you could not walk to another pub about a mile away in the evening, while the absence of a local slip road means "a three-mile round trip to the nearby M1" motorway.

Iarnród Éireann said 150 people commute to Dublin from Stamullen each day.

However, company spokesman Barry Kenny acknowledged that many more commuters may drive to Balbriggan which is within the cheaper, suburban fare structure. About 2,200 commuters a day use Balbriggan station.