“Older people and people with disabilities are so shocked, there was no forewarning really,” Johnstown resident David Stynes said as news filtered through the village that the only shop in the locality, Jordan’s Centra, is due to close this week.
“It’s ridiculous, we’ve nothing in the town,” the 65-year-old said.
Located just off the N7, between Naas and Kill in Co Kildare, Johnstown, like 11 other Johnstowns in the east of the country, owes its name to the order of St John of Jerusalem, Knights Hospitaller, said local historian Brian McCabe. “The original church is up the way. Since the 1300s, there has been a village here,” he said.
From Naas originally, Mr Stynes has lived in Johnstown for the last three years and is a wheelchair user. He was candid about how the shop closure will affect him.
“As you can see I’m not very mobile. I’m lucky I have an electric wheelchair, but if you’re sitting at home and you realise eight, nine, 10 o’clock you have run out of bread, where are you supposed to go now?”
He has already experienced some of the hardship that the shop closure will bring. “I have to rely on the buses to get to Kill or Naas. But last week I was going up the ramp and the wheelchair toppled over and I ended up in hospital, so I can’t really trust getting on the buses now,” he said.
Mr Stynes, like many others, is critical of the lack of communal infrastructure in the village. “What’s the town going to be left with, a Chinese restaurant?” he said. “For older and disabled people, it’s going to be a nightmare.”
The owner of the shop, Alan Jordan, who lives locally and whose children have worked in the store, said closing had been a difficult decision that was not taken lightly.
“The business has been growing and expanding, but unfortunately the premises is no longer fit for purpose,” he said. “It has been outgrown by the size of the community, it can’t provide the range of products that the community deserves. On three occasions over the last 12 years we have tried unsuccessfully to secure alternative sites in the village.”
One of these sites, located across the road from the shop, remains vacant. “We would have built a 4,000 sq ft store there with 44 car-parking spaces ... But that didn’t come to pass; a group of local people weren’t in favour.”
The Jordan Centra group is the largest Centra chain in Ireland, with stores in eight other locations in Kildare and Dublin.
The Jack and Jill Children’s Foundation, whose administrative offices are located above the Centra store in Johnstown, has agreed to purchase the shop, pending the owner getting planning approval for its change of use, said Deirdre Walsh, chief executive of the charity.
However, some locally have queried the need for increased storage space at the shop.
Katelyn Dunne (19), who lives in Johnstown and works in the local Chinese restaurant, said: “They were saying that you can’t store everything in the shop, but you don’t need everything in it, just the essentials: food and bread.”
For many, the impending closure of the shop is further evidence of the hollowing out of a village and its environs, which has more than 1,300 inhabitants who already have no school or post office of their own.
The local community centre has been closed since 2000 as the local council did not take it over, said Johnstown resident and Fine Gael councillor, Fintan Brett.
However, one bright spot on the horizon is that the Johnstown Inn at the top of the village, which closed four or five years ago, has new owners and may open again at the end of the year, say locals.
Another possible positive development for the village may involve the vacant site across from the Centra store, Mr McCabe said. “We have plans for the site of the old Johnstown Garden Centre, we’re in consultation with the council about developing that as a community area,” he said.
In response to queries, Kildare County Council said it was “actively pursuing” the provision of a community development facility for Johnstown, but due to commercial sensitivities was unable to disclose further details.
While Johnstown may be something of a quiet village, the lack of services is frustrating for its residents especially as the area has seen significant population growth in recent times.
The 2022 Census said the Johnstown area had a population of 1,320, with the largest age cohort being in the 15 to 19-years-old category.
Ms Dunne is fully aware of the effect the shop closure will have on her peers. “So many people around here have jobs there and lots of lads around here do work experience there and they won’t be able to do that either,” she said.
Johnstown has been bypassed several times – by the Naas dual carriageway in the 1960s and more recently by the N7.
Locals are now wondering whether the village will remain permanently bypassed in terms of amenities. “For the population, it’s kind of ridiculous,” resident Alan Browne (43) said.
