Six Christmas trees are dotted around a magnificent Co Down house where a book club made up of mainly Dubliners has just met.
Camembert Santas were served on charcuterie boards by Co Tipperary-born Pádraig Mullally and his husband Ruairí, who hosted the monthly event in their cinnamon-scented livingroom.
The couple live in a detached new-build in the sprawling Hillcrest village development in Bessbrook, a former Quaker village on the outskirts of Newry.
“It may as well be a suburb of Dublin,” laughs Ruairí.
“There’s 24 of us in the club and only two are from Newry; I’m one of them. The majority are from the South. There’s a lot of Dubs and there’s a guy from Limerick and another one from Wexford. There’s even a woman from Donegal.”
During the day, the estate is like “a ghost town” as so many residents are working in Dublin, he adds.
Mullally (33) grew up on a farm in Drangan and studied science in Cork; he drives to Blanchardstown in Dublin three days a week where he works for a pharmaceutical company.
While a future move back to Tipperary hasn’t been ruled out, he “wouldn’t even consider” relocating to Dublin to be closer to work.
“Our quality of life would be massively changed. We were only down in Dublin at the weekend and it was so much more expensive. And then if you think of the house prices,” Mullally says.
[ A personal housing plan: Move to Newry, buy for €150,000 less, commute to DublinOpens in new window ]
“Take for example our house – a four-bedroom detached with super handy proximity to Belfast and Dublin. You wouldn’t get anything in Dublin for £265,000 (what they paid). It would be unheard of.”
Mullally is among the growing number of young professionals living in the border city while continuing to commute to Dublin.
Post-pandemic remote working, cheaper rents and a lower cost of living are among the reasons for the increasing number of Southern-based workers renting or buying in Newry, according to local estate agent Ian Hall.
“Some of them might have a connection or are moving back here,” he adds.
“They’re younger, educated, probably travelled more and their jobs offer more flexibility in terms of where they can live. A lot of them work in professional services or IT.”
Hall’s firm, Hanna Hillen, handled many of the sales in the nearby Gantry Lane development, which began four years ago and is almost complete.
Diggers are on site where, according to one builder, the remaining houses will “go like hot cakes” as it is so close to Newry train station.
A new hourly Belfast to Dublin train service was introduced at the end of October.
Estate agent Micheál Hastewell recently sold a three-bedroom semi in Gantry to a couple from the South.
“The young couple told me that they were sick of being slaves to Dublin. They were happy to buy something at probably half the price of what they can afford in Dublin,” he says.
“But there is now huge demand for Newry – and the supply just isn’t here.
“Even more recently, we rented a property down the old Warrenpoint Road. Again, it was a couple renting a shoebox of an apartment in Dublin. They saw a three-bedroom house online for £950 per month.
“They’re saying Southern prices are out of control.”
Hillcrest resident – and book club member – Emma Morgan (35) is a Dublin-based accountant from Skerries who has been living in the North since 2019.
“My husband is from Newry. I always joke that I moved up for love and cheaper housing,” she says.
Morgan’s plan was to stay temporarily and save up to buy a house in Skerries – where the average price for a three-bed semi is in excess of €500,000. That has now changed.
“We bought our home in Newry at the same time my brother bought a two-bedroom apartment in Skerries. With the exchange rate, it was roughly the same price. We got ours for £212,000 and then paid an extra £15,000 for the sunroom. Already, the value of property in this estate has increased significantly. I redid our mortgage in April and they valued it at £280,000.”
But it is more than the cost of property that is keeping her in the North: “If we moved back, there would be a significant impact on our quality of life purely because our money is not going to go as far down South.
[ Northern Ireland house sales reach highest point in two yearsOpens in new window ]
“Also, from the day I moved up here, I had friends. We’re all pretty much blow-ins – and from all about the place as well. It’s not just Dublin. I think the fact we are blow-ins, we’re looking for that bit of community, so the likes of the book club is great for that.
“Joe, my husband, says that I now know more people than he does. I’ve made such an effort over the last five to six years. I joined every baby group going when I had my son.”
Before going on maternity leave – she is returning to work next month – Morgan commuted to the office by train two to three times a week. The station is a short drive away.
“I would get the 7.40am and be in at ten past nine. I’d get the 4.50pm home and get in at just after six o’clock. Those were roughly the hours I would be in and out of the house when I lived in Skerries.
“The internet on the train is generally good and I logged the extra hours when I was working on the train. My boss was completely happy with that because the work got done.
“Pre-Covid we were based in Thomas Street, but we’re now out in Blackrock. I used to get the train to Connolly and walk; now I get the Dart and it’s much of a muchness.”
A town before it was granted city status in 2002, Newry was an economic black spot during the 1980s with rocketing unemployment rates and a depressed property market.
Today, housing demand is outstripping supply.
The peace process had a transformative effect, but Southerners would “never have contemplated” buying houses in Newry during the Troubles, says Ian Hill, who has been an estate agent for more than 20 years.
“My dad bought a petrol station in Newry in 1983 and had it until 1996. That was a time whenever petrol was cheaper in the North and people would have been coming from the South. They would have been coming down just for a day, and that was a big thing,” he recalls.
“Peacetime brought stability, and then you see some things shared – like the health service, for example. All those things break down barriers and maybe make it more comfortable for people from the South to live here.”
In early 2025, work will begin on a further housing development close to the main A1 motorway.
Paddy Gray, emeritus professor of housing at Ulster University, is aware of the emerging trend: “I think Newry’s an attractive place to live and people regularly travel over the Border. The salaries are much higher in Dublin and it’s not a long commute. When you think of people going to their jobs in London and spending an hour-and-a-half on the Tube, and all the stress of that.”
Gray sits on the Residential Tenancies Board, an independent body that regulates the private rental sector in Ireland.
Earlier this month, the board released data showing rental costs increased by 4.7 per cent in the Republic in the three months to June compared with the same quarter last year.
The average cost of a new tenancy in the South now stands at €1,644 a month. Dublin rentals are highest, costing an average of €2,147.
“Remember, these are only averages and figures can be skewed and are much higher in some cases,” adds Gray.
In the North, prices are also rising. Government figures show the average price for a house in Northern Ireland was £190,553 between July and September, a rise of 6.2 per cent on the same period last year.
In the Newry, Mourne and Down area, it was £201,305 (the fourth highest of the North’s 11 local government district areas), representing a 4.2 per cent increase on the previous year.
Back at the Mullallys’ home in Hillcrest, they were preparing to spend Christmas in Tipperary.
“I think we could live there one day. We’re farmers in rural Tipp, there’s a bit of frontage there – that’s why Ruairí married me,” jokes Pádraig.
“We see the likes of my brother building a fabulous house in the country and that has sparked something.
“But we have a life in Newry and Ruairí obviously has his family here as well. I feel like I have the best of both worlds here.”
- Sign up for push alerts and have the best news, analysis and comment delivered directly to your phone
- Find The Irish Times on WhatsApp and stay up to date
- Our In The News podcast is now published daily - Find the latest episode here
