Residential

Wicklow town: A coastal fishing spot with regular city links

Commuter hotspots: Wicklow is just an hour from Dublin and has a thriving food scene

Wicklow town’s harbour. File photograph: Eric Luke/The Irish Times

Alanna Gallagher's face
Alanna Gallagher
Sat Feb 2 2019 - 06:00

Distance to Dublin city centre: 66km

Connectivity: There are about five trains per weekday with a 75-minute travel time from Wicklow to Dublin's Connolly Station.

Bus Eireann’s 133 can deliver commuters from the town to Dublin Airport in 1hr 45minutes. Wexford Bus’s 740A route can do the same journey in 90 minutes.

By car, Dublin airport is a 55-minute drive via the N11 and M50, and the Port Tunnel is also 55 minutes away.

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Population: 10,584

Those priced out of Greystones have begun to look south to Wicklow town, with its working harbour and decent train and bus connectivity says Catherine O'Reilly of local agent, Sherry FitzGerald Catherine O'Reilly. The growing popularity is reflected in the 400 new homes recently built here, she adds.

The view out to sea from Waverly Development

O’Reilly grew up in Greystones and says Wicklow, where she now lives, reminds her of what it used to be like. It is a small market town with heritage buildings that include its historic Gaol and lighthouse, and heritage shop fronts.

The town has an award-winning bookshop and family-run retailers that have been trading here for decades; the one-time watchmaker and jewellers TJ Gelletlie, who last year clocked up 200 years of trading in the town, is one example, while John P Hopkins Sons, aka Hopkins Toymaster, marked 190 years in business in 2017.

It's a foodie centre too with its Taste of Wicklow now an annual two-day event, and since 1980 the biennial Round Ireland yacht race starts from and finishes here.

The town even has its own suburban seal, Sammy, who makes quite a splash when he leaves his harbour waters as often as three times a day to lumber across the road to the Lighthouse restaurant shamelessly rolling his big brown eyes to see what’s on the menu.

Sammy the Seal who is a regular atraction in Wicklow town, on New Year’s day making his way across the road to the fishmonger at South Quay, Wicklow. Photograph: Garry O’Neill

There are a lot of recently built schools – six primary and three secondary – to choose form. The bus service is excellent and comes with wifi as standard so work can be done in transit.

Prices for a three-bed start from €299,000 whereas the same style of property in Greystones would be in the mid-to-high four hundreds.

Prices for three-bed semis with convertible attics at Waverley Meadow, a scheme by Broomhall Developments in adjacent Rathnew – an area fast being assimilated into Wicklow town – start at €299,000.

Launching in a few weeks is Carrig Beag by developer Mark O’Kelly. Prices for its four- and five-bed semi- and detached homes will range from €360,000 to €495,000.

Burkeen Hall by Cosy Homes is a small estate of 48 sizeable three-bed semis where there are four remaining units starting from €395,000.

Bus EireannM50Sherry FitzGerald