Ashbourne, County Meath

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ashbourne Cill Dhéagláin
Location
WGS-84 (GPS) Coordinates: 53°30′44″N 6°23′54″W / 53.512296, -6.398335
Irish grid reference O060525
Statistics
Province:	Leinster
County:	County Meath
Elevation:	73 m (240 ft)
Population (2006)	8528

Ashbourne (Irish: Cill Dhéagláin, meaning Church of [Saint] Declan) is a sizeable commuter town in County Meath, Ireland about 20 km from Dublin on the N2 road.

[edit] Growth

Ashbourne's main street

Ashbourne has undergone a rapid transformation in recent years, from a small village to become part of the commuter belt of Dublin.

The population of the town was 8,528 as of the 2006 census, a 34% increase on the previous census in 2002, making it Meath's second largest town after Navan and the largest town in the new Meath East Dáil constituency, which elects 3 TDs to the Dáil.

This growth has largely been the result of the rapid construction of several new housing schemes - most notably several apartment blocks scattered throughout the town and a number of new housing estates. It's also led to Ashbourne becoming a cosmopolitan town, the 2006 census showed ^[1] that over 12% of Ashbourne's population was born outside Ireland. The Lithuanian community is the second largest minority in Ashbourne after people from the United Kingdom. Almost one fifth of all non-Irish born in the town are from Lithuania. Lithuanian language services are held in the Church of the Immaculate Conception. The Polish community in Ashbourne is the second-largest in Meath after Navan.

The growth in Ashbourne's population has spurred expansion of local enterprise and retail to cater for the growing populations needs. Many new retail units have been opened in recent years.

[edit] Public transport

New apartments in Ashbourne

Ashbourne is served by Bus Éireann who provide a regular service from Beresford Place, using a limited number of Bus Éireann-branded double-decker buses, every 20 minutes at peak times to the town. Some of these services continue on to Ratoath, Kilmoon Cross, Duleek and even Navan.

Ashbourne is served by a limited Dublin Bus Nitelink service after 23:30. Monday to Thursday, Ashbourne commuters can take the 40N service through Finglas and on to Ashbourne for €5 one-way (significantly cheaper than the €30 plus taxi fare) from Westmoreland St at 00:30 and 02:00. Thursday to Saturday, there is a dedicated Ashbourne Nitelink, the 88N, which again leaves Westmoreland St and proceeds straight to Ashbourne, again for €5, one-way at 00:30, 02:00 and 03:30.

In April 2007, Bus Éireann erected notices in Ashbourne outlining 4 official stops and requesting commuters not to request stops at other locations, where stops have not yet been erected to cater for newer Ashbourne housing estates. Bus Éireann's decision to prevent buses stopping informally, instead of consulting with their customers, was greeted with anger by commuters and representations were made by local leaders to Bus Éireann.^[2] It's now felt by many bus users in Ashbourne that the best solution for public transport in Ashbourne would be the introduction of a cheaper, more efficient Dublin Bus service.^[3]

[edit] Amenities

There is an 18 hole golf course on the outskirts of the town and several sports clubs in the town, including a Gaelic Athletic Association club, Donaghmore-Ashbourne who have recently built a new clubhouse, with an indoor astro turf and two full-size Gaelic pitches. There is also a rugby union team who play their matches at the Ashbourne rugby club which has also undergone some development with the creation of a new rugby pitch and a small astro pitch which can also be used for 5 a side soccer. There is also, a soccer team Ashbourne United who are achieving great things at this time , a judo club and a boxing club as well as other sporting organisations. There is a communtity centre which has a big hall and some squash courts. The community centre is used by many of the sporting organastions such as the Ashbourne athletics club.

Church of the Immaculate Conception

[edit] Retail activities

A series of shopping streets are currently being built as part of a scheme to give Ashbourne the type of retail centre more in keeping with other towns. Up until recently commercial development in the town was stifled given the fact that the town was bisected by a busy national primary route, the N2, on to which all commercial development was focused. This restricted the town's potential to attract high street retailers due to the a lack of suitable sites and the associated traffic hazards of the N2. In 2002 a local area plan for the town was completed which provides for the future development of Ashbourne. The plan provides for a major expansion of Ashbourne westward into the townland of Killegland adjoining the new N2 Ashbourne bypass. When implemented it will see the introduction of residential units, a retail park, community facilities and industrial units. The town is being planned westward as the Fingal County boundary is only 1.5 kilometres (0.9 mi) from the east side of the town, which decreases to approximately 600 metres (2,000 ft) at the north end of the town, in the townland of Rath.

Killegland Street, Ashbourne's new retail area

Of the streets developed in Ashbourne's "new" town centre, Killegland Street, has become a new commercial street containing a number of varied retail units along with a new library and council offices. Car parking in the town has been expanded thanks to both a large underground car park beneath Killegland Street linking into the a supermarket and a multi-storey car park above.

Bridge Street is an existing street between the Broadmeadow River and the Ashbourne House Hotel which contained just three dwellings and no retail outlets eight years ago now has five shops, a large hotel, dozens of apartments and a supermarket there. This is typical of the high pace of development in Ashbourne in the past decade.

The new Dunnes Stores

A large supermarket has opened a large store on the former Dardis & Dunns seed merchant site on the northern end of Frederick/Main Street as part of the Ashbourne Town Centre development and is accessible from both Frederick Street, across from Ashbourne's original Town Centre and Killegland Square, linking the new retail area to the established centre in the town.

[edit] Future retail activities and developments

Development is now being concentrated on the area west of Castle Street (known locally as Ned Nulty's Lane), a route which was completely realigned and widened in 2006 to allow motorists to avoid the new centre and reduce congestion, as well as providing a direct route from Garden City to Cluain Rí and areas like Brindley Park and Johnswood. However in the medium to long-term, this route will lead to the new housing developments to the west of the town centre/Crestwood/Bourne View areas. It's expected that this end of town, which is now home to Donaghmore-Ashbourne GAA's new playing pitches, will eventually stretch to the N2 bypass to the west and join with Brindley Park to the north.

2007 also saw the opening of two new commercial ventures in the Rath, north of the town. 4Home Superstores opened in February 2007 at the new Ashbourne Retail Park and catalogue store Argos opened an Argos Extra outlet in the park in August 2007. County Meath's second Marriott hotel opened in April 2007 as the 140-room Ashbourne Marriott.

Ashbourne Retail Park Ltd. applied for planning permission^[4] on 9 March 2007 for huge extension to the park, consisting of 4 additional double-height retail warehouse units, over which will be a 1,000 seater cinema, as well as food and beverage outlets. Car parking will also increase by another 210 spaces, with the entire extension containing almost 7,500 sq. m of floor area. The arrival of a cinema in Ashbourne is eagerly anticipated as it was originally claimed to be included in the Killegland Street development. The development was granted permission^[4] with conditions on 10 August 2007; the operator of the cinema will be Storm Cinemas, who currently operate cinemas in Belfast, Limerick, Cavan, Portlaoise, Naas and Waterford.

[edit] The New N2

Ashbourne is linked to the M50 and Dublin City by 17 kilometres of new high quality dual carriageway on the N2 national primary route, which commences at junction 5 of the M50 motorway (13.5km from Ashbourne). The new road terminates at the Rath roundabout in the townland of Rath 1.5km north of Ashbourne. This section of the N2 was significantly upgraded in the 1990s almost as far as Slane, which is the next town north of Ashbourne. The road is unique in Ireland as it is the first non-motorway road in the state to officially be granted national motorway speed limits of 120 km/h. As a result of this, the road is sometimes incorrectly, though understandably, referred to as the M2 by some local groups such as auctioneers and some local media. The old N2, now redesignated the R135, had its speed limit reduced to 80km/h, to the consternation of local motorists.

Council offices and Library

The Ashbourne library has held a number of events and extremely well known authors have paid a visit to the library.

The new N2, which the Government announced in March 2005 would not be tolled, allows thousands of commuters and hauliers to avoid the town, which has become a major bottleneck for traffic heading south from Donegal, Derry, Tyrone, Monaghan, Louth and the rest of Meath. The South Ashbourne Interchange, a large junction taking traffic on and off the N2 near the Nine Mile Stone, promises a non-stop transferral of traffic to and from Ashbourne and its new by-pass. The new N2 will eventually be linked to the M50 through a freeflow junction at exit 5, meaning most traffic will not have to stop at traffic lights as is currently the case. Already, the new route sends and receives northbound M50 traffic this way.

Phase 1 of the route, from the M50 junction to the Cherryhound junction, opened to traffic on 17 November 2005. The old N2 from just north of The Brock Inn was then blocked off from the M50 junction and became the R135. The new route immediately allowed traffic to and from Ashbourne to avoid Kilshane Cross, a noted bottleneck in recent years due to it serving Dublin airport. Phase 2 of the route, from the Nine Mile Stone south of Ashbourne to north of Rath Cross - the Ashbourne bypass section - opened to traffic on 21 March 2006, ahead of the entire route being opened by An Taoiseach Bertie Ahern TD on 25 May 2006 - four months ahead of schedule.

Bus Éireann has not offered any express services using the new road, as expected when it first opened, and continue to use the old (R135) road for all services until Kilshane, where the R135 has an exit to the Dublin Airport Logistics Park and the N2. This is in stark contrast to Dublin Bus, who use the N2 as far as Cherryhound (exit 2) for their 88N Nitelink service to Ashbourne.

In Ashbourne, the North County Dublin Volunteers also know as the Fingal Volunteers, under Thomas Ashe and second in command, Richard Mulcahy, attacked the RIC barracks there. Reinforcements came from Slane, and after a 5 hours battle the Volunteers captured over 90 prisoners. There were 8-10 RIC deaths, and two Volunteer fatalities, (John Crennigan & Thomas Rafferty). The action pre-figured the guerrilla tactics of the Irish Republican Army in the Irish War of Independence 1919-1921.

[edit] 1916 Rising Monument

To the north of the village is a monument to the only major incident of the 1916 Easter Rebellion to take place outside Dublin. This monument carries a plaque with a line from a poem by Thomas Ashe the local schoolmaster: 'Let me carry your cross for Ireland, Lord'. The monument has two images on one side the figure is in the form of Christ on the other side is a revolutionary. This monument is known locally as The Rath Cross.

• List of towns in the Republic of Ireland

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• A short history of Ashbourne
• Meath Tourism website managed by Meath County Council, based in Ashbourne