Name: Eamonn Norris Address: Navan, Co Meath Dwelling: Two-storey detached house Here since: Birth
I grew up on a country lane about 20 minutes outside Navan, but for the past four years my family has lived about five minutes from the centre of town. It's one of the fastest growing towns in the country. There are 30,000 or so people living here now; it has exploded in the past 10 years. Navan was a mining town originally. It grew up around Tara Mines, and awful lot of people moved here when the mines opened.
Almost everybody who originally settled here was miners. My father didn't work for the mines, but his business depended on it. Then it went from that to being a trade town, and now it's a dormitory town for Dublin; there's almost as many Dubs there as native Navan people.
The town has its own distinct personality, made famous by Tommy Tiernan and Dylan Moran, and even Pierce Brosnan talks about growing up here. With all the Dubliners settling here and drinking here, and plenty of foreign nationals, too, that personality is changing. For the most part, though, the town is coping well with all the changes. It has managed to retain its identity, unlike other dormitory towns, where people just sleep in them.
There was a stereotype of the town - Tiernan called it the cultureless hole of Ireland - but that's changing. There's a fantastic arts centre here, the Solstice Arts centre, and a theatre. I run a comedy club - one of my buddies is a stand-up comedian - and the town is well known for its comedians, but there has never been a comedy club here. So we thought we'd go for something like the International Bar in Dublin. It's called the Lantern Laugh.
We had Ardal O'Hanlon down a few weeks ago. We always keep an open-mic spot for local talent. There's an abundance of talent here, and it's good to give them a platform.
Going to school in Navan was an experience. I went to St Pat's, where you had to survive through strength of character. Five years in there prepares you for anything life can throw at you. Schools in Dublin are so segregated. I went to UCD, and some of the kids there wouldn't have been able to cope in Pat's. Everybody mixed with everybody. There was no room for class snobbery.
Enough of our friends have stayed here that there's no reason to go anywhere else. There's a lot of employment here, and a lot of them have gone out on their own with their trades. I spend a lot of time in Dublin, but many of my friends don't think they'll ever leave Navan.
In conversation with Davin O'Dwyer