A cabinet minister and Jimmy Rabbitte in the same neighbourhood? "Not bleedin' likely," fans of Roddy Doyle's Barrytown Trilogy would insist. Kilbarrack's special blend of north Dublin warmth and frontier-style lawlessness was captured in print and celluloid by Doyle, who taught for 14 years at Greendale Community school in the heart of the area. His bleak portraits of poverty painted an image of a community which fended for itself, although within a loving support system.
"I wanted to see if I could copy Dickens. The high-rise landscape of Kilbarrack was the right creative choice - a universal landscape that people everywhere would recognise," says Doyle in a recent interview.
Tourists occasionally come to view first-hand the stark apartment blocks and to sink a pint in the Foxhound Inn and The Cedars, which were frequented by characters in The Van and The Snapper films. The compactness of the film location area is a surprise - and that much of Kilbarrack is tree-lined, well-kept and differs little from most working-class suburbs.
Kilbarrack stretches from the seafront to Howth Junction and Kilbarrack DART stations, running into Bayside to the north, Raheny to the south and with Donaghmede on the far side of the railway line. As with more affluent suburbs, the boundaries are flexible. Residents of Foxfield on the edge of Raheny insist on a Raheny address and houses on the far side of Kilbarrack Road are, according to these house-owners, firmly in Bayside.
Dr Michael Woods, Minister for Marine and Natural Resources, has lived for over 40 years in one of the older bungalows on Kilbarrack Road, close to Roddy Doyle's parents. The houses were surrounded by countryside when they first moved there in the 1950s. According to Dr Woods, their biggest problem then was cattle breaking into the garden.
Like many residents, Dr Woods feels the area has had an unfair press. "Kilbarrack came in for a lot of stick, but it has improved a lot since Roddy Doyle's time. It's an area a lot of young people want to come back to, although price is a problem. There is a strong community association and plenty of amenities for children - a great range of sporting activities and a lot of music taught and played. You don't see all these things when you go past on the road," he says.
Both St John's Musical Society and the Third Day Chorale are based in Kilbarrack and the Raheny Accordian Band has several members from Kilbarrack. The Niamh Barrog Gaelic club is one of the largest on the northside and there is an equally active soccer club. Dr Woods's two daughters were keen members of the KADCA Athletic club.
There is a regrettable uniformity of house-style in Kilbarrack, with standard 1950s three-bedroom semis and ex-corporation houses predominating. Properties close to the seafront and east of the parish church towards Raheny are privately-built, more mature - and the most sought-after.
In an executor's sale last autumn, Sherry FitzGerald sold a bungalow at the upper end of Kilbarrack Road for just under £200,000. Douglas Newman Good is currently selling a five-bedroom dormer bungalow on the same road close to Howth Junction DART station, asking around £230,000. Properties at the Howth Road end of the road can achieve considerably more than this in good condition. Gunne sold a four-bedroom semi near the sea last October for about £270,000.
Foxfield and Greendale are similarly well-regarded areas. Thornville Road, Avenue and Drive contain a mix of ex-corporation houses and larger, privately-built three-bedroom semis - many snapped up in recent years by astute young buyers. One three-bedroom semi on Thornville Park, which sold in 1996 for £65,000, is now valued at £150,000.
Flynn & Associates is currently selling a three-bedroom semi with converted garage on Roseglen Road, off Thornville Avenue, for £150,000. Another ex-corporation three-bedroom end-terrace achieved £121,000 with Gunne last year. Around the DART station where Roddy Doyle's novels were filmed, good buys for the future are to be found. The houses are mainly ex-corporation.
You can still get a two or three-bedroom house with good gardens in the Briarfield, Swan's Nest and Mount Olive areas for around £110,000. Flynn & Associates also has a three-bedroom end-terrace house on Briarfield Road on its books, priced at £115,000 and Boyle & Associates has just sold a similar house on Swans Nest Avenue for around £115,000.
As a comparison, a scheme of brand new three-bedroom townhouses at Grange Park Crescent - a stone's throw from Swan's Nest - sold well last year to first-time buyers with prices starting at £146,000. New developments are rare in Kilbarrack, although the planned demolition of the tower blocks used in the screen version of Roddy Doyle's novels should pave the way for an increased supply.
Douglas Newman Good launched a development of 24 apartments, duplexes and townhouses on Kilbarrack Road last summer. Called The Belfry, the redbrick scheme was built on a site belonging to a local farmer, who still commutes to his land on the outskirts of the city.
There are a few of these left for sale. Two-bedroom garden apartments are £144,950, three-bedroom duplexes at £174,950 and two-bedroom townhouses with a study are £157,000. The gardens are communal.
Cottages are another scarce commodity in Kilbarrack, where local authority schemes to re-house inner city tenants accelerated housing development from the 1930s to the 1950s. Howth Junction Cottages is an attractive row of small houses built on waste land acquired by the then county council from a local farmer at the turn of the last century. Mainly occupied by senior citizens, these little gems would fetch around £140,000 in today's buoyant market.
The blocks of corporation flats stand empty now and boarded up, the tenants re-located to a very smart scheme of townhouses at the end of Howth Junction Cottages. This has been named Redmond's Court after the longest resident in Kilbarrack, retired Howth tram driver Tom Redmond, who campaigned for two decades to have the site developed.
There is no denying that some petty crime exists, as in many mixed areas of the city. Local curate Fr Jim Kenny is adamant, however, that the generosity and strong community spirit of Kilbarrack, which surfaces when neighbours are in difficulties, more than compensates for its few shortcomings.
