{"id":147817,"date":"2025-11-19T07:02:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-19T07:02:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/147817\/"},"modified":"2025-11-19T07:02:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-19T07:02:09","slug":"balbriggan-is-young-diverse-and-growing-fast-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/147817\/","title":{"rendered":"Balbriggan is young, diverse and growing fast \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

This article is part of Ireland\u2019s Changing Suburbs<\/a>, an Irish Times series exploring our fast-growing new towns, changing older neighbourhoods and shrinking rural landscapes. See also: \u2018the commodification of Crumlin\u2019<\/a>, the urbanisation of Glanmire<\/a>, the densification of Dundrum<\/a> and the \u2018Dubification\u2019 of Navan<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Hemerson Ramos and his partner bought their home in Balbriggan\u2019s Taylor Hill estate in 2018 after renting in Dublin<\/a> for nine years.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we first moved out here, the commute was absolutely shocking,\u201d says Ramos. \u201cWe asked ourselves, \u2018what have we done?\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

The couple wanted to continue living in Dublin and this was the only place they could afford.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe hadn\u2019t even heard of Balbriggan,\u201d he says. \u201cBut, once six months and the shock had passed, we just ended up seeing the positives of this move.\u201d<\/p>\n

He loves the \u201csense of community\u201d, noting a difference between their neighbours now and those they lived next to in their former home near Croke Park<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t know our next-door neighbours. Here, everyone is saying \u2018hi\u2019 on the streets. We meet on Saturdays to work in the Tidy Towns group. It is so welcoming,\u201d says Ramos.<\/p>\n

Originally from Brazil<\/a>, he is a founding member of the Taylor Hill residents association. According to a survey the association carried out in 2022, there are 51 different nationalities living in the estate. This is emblematic of the town\u2019s transformation.<\/p>\n

It would be hard to find a more changed place in Ireland than Balbriggan. Between 1991 and 2022, the population here more than doubled, significantly outstripping the national average. <\/p>\n

About 30 per cent of the people recorded as living here in the 2022 census<\/a> were born outside the State. Balbriggan is also the \u201cyoungest town in Ireland\u201d, with almost a third of residents under 18.<\/p>\n

\u201cBalbriggan has gone from a sleepy dormitory town on the edge of Dublin to one of close to 30,000 people,\u201d says Independent councillor Tony Murphy.<\/p>\n

Murphy opened a jewellery business in the town in 1983 when the population was closer to 6,000. He has seen it go through \u201ca number of chapters\u201d.<\/p>\n

In the 2000s, cheap land around the town drew in developers, he says. With housing developments springing up, large numbers of Polish people moved in to service the construction industry.<\/p>\n

\"HemersonHemerson Ramos moved to Balbriggan in 2018. Photograph: Enda O’Dowd \"AnAn alleyway leading to Balbriggan beach in north county Dublin. Photograph: Enda O’Dowd <\/p>\n

In addition, the direct provision accommodation centre at the old Mosney site in nearby Julianstown saw \u201ca natural movement of people into the town who were qualifying for asylum\u201d, according to Murphy.<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cIt was two or three years before there was overall acceptance of this change, because it was very fast. I\u2019d say we are a good example of integration right now. We have so many nationalities and I\u2019d say there is good harmony because everyone is working.\u201d<\/p>\n

This was not necessarily the case around the time of the economic crash, he recalls. Social tensions became heightened due to financial strains and cultural \u201cmisunderstandings\u201d, he says.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Ireland\u2019s Changing Suburbs: \u2018Glanmire was a village when I moved here\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have really good diversity groups set up now. The garda\u00ed<\/a> and different ethnic minority groups sit and discuss different issues. People are talking and expressing concerns before they can escalate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Second-generation immigrants are coming of age in Balbriggan.<\/p>\n

A woman in her 20s is enjoying a conversation with a friend in a cafe opposite the local courthouse. \u201cI saw my babushka yesterday,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

The conversation is conducted, at times, in what sounds like eastern European accents. Suddenly, however, these same voices can sound like those heard along the Dart line in south county Dublin. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Ireland\u2019s Changing Suburbs: The \u2018Dubification\u2019 of Navan, Co MeathOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

One of the first migrant communities to really establish a presence in the town was the Polish. <\/p>\n

Malgorzata Orlowska-Smith is head of the Polish Scouting Association of Ireland and runs the local Polish Scouts group in Balbriggan. \u201cWe have 120 members in the local troop alone,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe organise a lot of events. On Polish independence day we had a Mass, then we marched down through the park to a local hotel where we had an event of singing and dancing with the Polish folk dance group.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"MalgorzataMalgorzata Orlowska-Smith has been living in Balbriggan for 18 years and runs the local Polish Scouts group in the town. Photograph: Enda O’Dowd <\/p>\n

Having moved to Balbriggan in 2007, Orlowska-Smith now also runs three local preschools, all of which represent the diversity of the area\u2019s population.<\/p>\n

\u201cI counted in one class of 24 children 22 different nationalities,\u201d she says. \u201cI employ 30 people and they are from all over the world as well \u2013 India, Pakistan, Africa, Poland, the Czech Republic, a few Irish too.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause of the cultural differences there are big challenges when celebrating holidays, even Halloween. We are trying to be very inclusive and ensure all nationalities are represented. Our staff being so diverse helps us understand it a bit more.\u201d<\/p>\n

Orlowska-Smith speaks warmly about life in the town. She says she has never been made to feel like an outsider, but adds there are problems.<\/p>\n

\u201cBalbriggan in general is a lovely place to live, but I don\u2019t think it was ready for this amount of people to move in. I know there is a problem with doctors; there are not enough of them. There is a huge problem with traffic. Public transport is not really great. The train and the buses are crowded.<\/p>\n

\"BalbrigganBalbriggan is being covered as part of the ‘Ireland’s Changing Suburbs’ series <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m getting a lot of phone calls from parents saying they are late because their bus is not running on time.\u201d<\/p>\n

She says there is a lack of activities for teenagers. \u201cThere are no youth facilities. We have playgrounds, an outdoor gym and football pitches, but our teenagers have nowhere to hang out and that can cause trouble. Especially on rainy days, it\u2019s really difficult to organise time for them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Balbriggan has grown due to internal migration as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cBalbriggan was not on our radar at all,\u201d says Niall Sheil, who moved there with his partner Victoria in 2021. He was born and raised in Tallaght, Dublin, and went on to rent in Maynooth, Co Kildare.<\/p>\n

Affordability first drew them to the north Dublin town, but they were also attracted by its diversity. Sheil\u2019s partner is from Malmo, Sweden, and is of African heritage.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe wanted to bring up our son in an environment where people of different backgrounds were already coexisting and living together,\u201d Sheil says.<\/p>\n

\"BridgeBridge Street in Balbriggan, which runs through the centre of the town. Photograph: Enda O’Dowd \"ShoppingShopping and entertainment facilities on Mill Street in Balbriggan town, Co Dublin. Photograph: Enda O’Dowd <\/p>\n

He says this diversity is most evident at his son\u2019s soccer club, Balbriggan FC, where young people of different ethnicities mix well. His partner takes their boy to his GAA training sessions at O\u2019Dwyers GAA club and \u201cis made to feel very welcome there\u201d.<\/p>\n

A PhD candidate at Maynooth University, Sheil is researching the demographics of Balbriggan with a focus on immigrant integration. In his experience, he says, there is very little racial tension, but, like Orlowska-Smith, he identifies a concern in the community about the activities of some teenagers.<\/p>\n

\u201cA very small minority of people are concerned about antisocial behaviour among teenagers . . . This is not linked to race or ethnicity but rather a lack of third spaces for the teenagers to congregate.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"TheThe closed park at Church Street in Balbriggan, Co Dublin. Photograph: Enda O’Dowd <\/p>\n

Sheil says while people who grew up in Ireland are perhaps more accustomed to seeing teenagers on the main street at night, it can be a culture shock for newly-arrived migrants, particularly those from China and India.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen people talk to me about antisocial behaviour it is perhaps different to what I experienced growing up in Tallaght in the 1980s and \u201890s,\u201d he says. \u201cThere isn\u2019t really a nefarious element to the \u2018antisocial\u2019 behaviour here, it is just teenagers trying to form their social identities.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite the influx of new residents, the economic benefits for the town can sometimes be hard to identify. Sheil is having a coffee on the upper floor of the Millfield Shopping Centre overlooking new housing developments. Tesco is the anchor tenant, but there are plenty of empty units. He notes several closed down during the pandemic. <\/p>\n

The main street, like many others, has lost traditional retail outlets. While there is still a locksmith, there is the increasingly typical modern street scene of mobile phone repair shops, barbers, vape stores and bookmakers. There are a smattering of \u201cTo Let\u201d signs as well.<\/p>\n

Ramos suggests this is down to weak footfall because so many people leave \u201cfirst thing in the morning to make money and don\u2019t get home until late at night\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have neighbours who are commuting up the M1 to Northern Ireland to work as doctors and nurses, some who are heading off to work in Intel in Leixlip, and [there are] people like me catching the Dart to work in places like D\u00fan Laoghaire.\u201d<\/p>\n

He says public infrastructure is \u201csaturated\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf you are living in Skerries, you have no chance of getting a seat on the train to Dublin in the morning. In Balbriggan, it is touch and go.\u201d<\/p>\n

The lack of larger local employers is a worry for some in the town. <\/p>\n

While Fyffes opened a new ripening centre in 2022, Murphy says only a handful of companies have more than 50 people working for them. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe are sitting on the Dublin-Belfast economic corridor,\u201d says the councillor. \u201cWe should be attracting more foreign investment and bigger employers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Housing demand outstrips local supply too. Prospective buyers are awaiting the completion of 817 units on the Land Development Agency\u2019s Hampton Demesne site and new estates under construction by Glenveagh.<\/p>\n

\"AA housing development on the outskirts of Balbriggan town, which has become a commuter town into Dublin city for many residents in recent years. Photograph: Enda O’Dowd <\/p>\n

Murphy is confident, however, that many of the missteps made in Balbriggan\u2019s initial rapid expansion will not be repeated.<\/p>\n

\u201cDuring the housing boom there was no money to build out the infrastructure that was needed,\u201d he says. \u201cWith most of those developments today, the planning applications are forcing the developers to deliver the cr\u00e8ches and identify lands for schools. Infrastructure is going in tandem with the housing.\u201d<\/p>\n

These are signs, he believes, that \u201cwe have learned some major lessons with what happened before\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This article is part of Ireland\u2019s Changing Suburbs, an Irish Times series exploring our fast-growing new towns, changing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":147818,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[11594,615,3662,61,60,82718,43],"class_list":{"0":"post-147817","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-balbriggan","9":"tag-dublin","10":"tag-housing-crisis","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-ireland-s-changing-suburbs","14":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147817","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=147817"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147817\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/147818"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=147817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=147817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=147817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}