Those moving from Dublin into the countryside may expect the long commute, but not the dramatic change in lifestyle, writes Kathy Sheridan
Only 15 miles from Dublin, Ratoath hardly warrants the name of commuter town. Yet its startling surge from village status to fastest-growing centre in the Leinster commuter belt (population is up 82.3 per cent in six years, and still growing), makes it impossible to ignore.
Who are all these people? What took them out to a Co Meath village with few amenities, poor lighting, scarce footpaths, horrendous traffic, intermittent public transport and woeful educational facilities?
Forget the stereotype of the young, struggling, first-time-buyer, Ratoath is not a first-time buyers' kind of place. Rampaging developments and building sites may lurk behind every hedge, but it has managed to market itself as a rather exclusive enclave - a step up from Ashbourne, certainly, in the eyes of the marketeers.
Well over half the residents are migrants from Dublin and many traded up by trading out. Having made a financial killing on relatively modest city properties, they could afford a large, detached, trophy home within six miles of Blanchardstown.
What the locale lacked in amenities, it made up for in low-density building and the spaciousness of the houses, some with halls big enough to boast a water feature and double garages out front.
Noel Eiffe, a retired postman, who built his 1970s house for £2,800 (and that included a £900 government grant), grins in bemusement at the €460,000 tag on the rows of new houses springing up behind him. He has little nostalgia for the old days, remembering a rather class-ridden society.
He likes the "new blood" around the place. "It's an improvement. There were real derelict sites around the village. It was great that you knew everyone in the old Ratoath, but you also needed a better standard of living and that's not something you'd swap. There's new people involved in everything and there's no way we could have carried on without them.
But as in every new commuter area, standard of living isn't always commensurate with quality of life. The trick in Ratoath is to base your work on the north side of Dublin.
Carol Dougan's office is in Ballsbridge, hardly more than 20 miles away. But however she cuts it, commuting adds two and a half hours to her working day.
At 6.10 a.m., her car pulling out of The Old Mill estate is the neighbourhood's wake-up call. Leaving at dawn means she gets to her desk in about 50 minutes. Leave at 8 a.m. and it would take an hour and three-quarters. So her husband Barry (who works in Raheny) gets the two younger children ready to be dropped into an Ashbourne crèche for 8 a.m.. And although Carol leaves the office at 4 p.m., it takes an hour and a half to get to Ashbourne to pick up the children. "And that's using every short-cut I know," she says.
It's a mid-week night in their airy, peaceful cul-de-sac and there's an air of weariness about Carol. Was the move worth it?
"It's all about the kids," answers Barry, a child on either arm. "It's very quiet here and the kids are safe. Niall [the eight-year-old] has freedom that he wouldn't have in Dublin."
What that means, says Carol, is that they can play on the green outside (within the estate) and the neighbours watch out for each other.
Carol makes her contribution to the community by giving a few hours to the local Credit Union on Friday nights. Weekends are about the children: scouts and football locally and swimming in the Navan Road pool 20 minutes away. Barry likes to travel back into the city on a Friday to socialise but the unpredictability of public transport makes that a "hassle".
Close to the village centre, in a large, detached house, Shane and Ita Buckley have a less frenetic existence, although they have four children. That's because Ita stays home, while Shane, an IT specialist, commutes to offices near the Point, a journey involving fewer delays, he reckons, than a colleague who travels there from Mount Merrion.
What they value about Ratoath are the "vestiges" of the old rural community network, "the chat and the service", Ryan's legendary steaks, the traditional Chinese restaurant, the champion butcher, the top-class French chef a few miles up the road . . . Others mention the Nitelink buses, the direct, daily service to Belfield and the excellent childcare facilities (Luc Hemeryck's custom-built crèche, open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., is among the biggest in the country).
Many do their shopping on the Internet, according to Ita, but the locals still gravitate towards Navan. Carol uses Tesco in Finglas (because it stays open till 10 p.m.).
But there is no disguising the fact that Ratoath is struggling. With half the population reckoned to be under 16, many adults are apprehensive. There is no secondary school. In eight years, national school enrolments have quadrupled to nearly 1,000 and a new building - sanctioned but still in the planning - is desperately needed.
There are no playgrounds, few footpaths and no cycle paths. Lorries thundering past from Drogheda port and endless, heedless streams of cars using the tiny, narrow village roads as a rat-run, force parents into cars, negating the very reason given by many for moving out of the city - that dream of rural living in which children roam safely and freely.
"It means that I have to load the four children into the car just to go for a carton of milk," Ita Buckley says.
Meanwhile, the community hall is hugely over-subscribed, children are enrolled for ballet and Irish dancing classes while still in the womb and, despite their best efforts, the GAA, soccer and scouts facilities for children are at breaking point, according to Father Gerry Stuart.
But these - old and new - are a proactive people with fine local leadership. Councillor Nick Killian, a long-time local activist, led a campaign to squeeze concessions from developers "who were making huge money and riding off into the sunset". The result is eight acres for an ambitious multi-million euro community centre - incorporating a 1,000-seat theatre, tennis courts, library etc - along with land for a post-primary school, sports pitches and a scouts' den, supported by a slew of cash donations, from €40,000 to €250,000. They will make it happen, they say determinedly. The burning question, though, is when?
