From the Vikings to celebrity estates: Malahide is a seaside suburb that's still a village at heart

Malahide is a one-time seaside town which suffers no not false modesty about the joys of either its location or people – many of whom shudder at the thought of living anywhere else, writes ROSE DOYLE

EARLY SUMMER suits Malahide. Sun followed by rain has lined the approach road with a triumphant green and given the lure of a blue horizon to the Coast Road. The village-like centre, on Sunday when The Irish Timeswent calling, was filled with churchgoers and joggers. Nobody rushed because Malahide has a pace all its own. An appreciative pace.

Malahide has the best of both worlds, and knows it. This one-time seaside village suffers no false modesty about the joys of either its location or community. Everyone you meet tells you how good the schools are, what a dream facility Malahide has in its estuary, how closely co-operative the community and how they never, ever want to live anywhere else.

Situated along the Broadmeadow estuary, 16km (10 miles) north of Dublin city and 6.5km (four miles) from Dublin airport, Malahide (Mullach Íde) has grown since the 1960s to become a suburban coastal town with residential developments to the south, west and northwest.

It is a long-time popular place to live – Vikings lived there in the 8th century and excavations indicate settlements going back to 6,000 BC, while today’s population numbers about 16,000. Richard Talbot, a knight with the invading Anglo-Norman forces of Henry 11, was granted the “lands and harbour of Malahide” in 1185 and Malahide Castle, the Talbot family home until 1975, is one of Ireland’s oldest castles.

These days in the care of Fingal County Council along with its 250-acre demesne, the castle and lands are as vital to the community and life of the town as is the estuary.

Barry Gibney, a third generation member of backbone-of-the-community James Gibney Sons publican family, says so: “Always has been, even in the 1960s when Lord Talbot gave us a field for soccer.” Gibneys, on New Street since 1937, employ up to 100 people, making them one of Malahide’s biggest employers. Eighteen of those employees are family members.

Paula Costello, managing director of auctioneers O’Farrell Cleere and a blow-in of a mere 17-years residency, agrees the importance of the castle and demesne to Malahide.

“The parklands have all sorts of sport grounds and facilities, from cricket to a par-three golf course, football pitches, and pitch and putt. Avoca Handweavers are due to move into the castle and the walk within the demesne’s perimeter walls is as popular as the other great local walk along the Coast Road to Portmarnock.”

With an office base on New Street in the village centre, 27 years with O’Farrell Cleere and an almost-grown family of two she knows a thing or two about Malahide. “The village is a great little nucleus. People call the crossroads at the centre the diamond, it’s both heart and meeting place. We have the Dart and are served too by Irish Rail. We’ve got three different bus routes, a Nitelink and a couple of buses taking taking UCD students all the way to the campus.”

She takes unabashed pleasure in giving a tour of the town, heading down New Street and under an arch to the Marina Village, an elegant and early flagship development among Celtic Tiger apartment and townhouses, on into the marina proper, where clattering masts and sleek sailing boats occupy 350 fully serviced berths, past to the 180-boat capacity boatyard (once one of the best wooden trawler yacht builder yards this side of the Atlantic) and out past Cruzzo’s restaurant, perched on a platform held over the water on columns.

There are 52 places to eat in Malahide and its five pubs serve food too. The town is hailed, locally, as a “gourmet capital”.

The estuary was windy when we got there. It was wide too, and full of young people learning to sail. “It’s very safe,” Paula assured, “the water is mostly no more than chest high.” Donabate and Portrane are on the opposite shore and a new bridge in the distance leads to the M1 motorway.

We travelled along Sea Road and Yellow Walls Road, both of them developments built in the 1970s, and came to Ard na Mara. Built in 1965, this was Malahide’s first housing development; Seapark, Biscayne, Chalfont, Seabury, Gainsborough and others came later.

With approximately 6,000 homes in today’s Malahide, the story of the area’s housing development is that of moderate building through the 1970s and 1980s, becoming more explosive in the 1990s and 2000s, and neatly parallels what happened nationwide. Barry Gibney confirms that the building of Ard Na Mara’s 150 detached bungalows in 1965 was a “huge event. Houses sold for about £3,000 each.”

All a far cry from the exclusive and leafily landscaped Abington development, on Malahide’s Swords Road. Large, detached, blond-brick houses sit on large sites and sold, in hectic boom days, for €4 million. One sold recently for €1.7 million, others currently on the market have been reduced to €1.95 million, €2.1 million and €2.8 million. The rich and famous like Abington’s exclusivity and we pass the home of Nicky (Westlife) and Georgina Byrne, singer Ronan Keating’s old home (soon to go on sale) and his present home.

The last big sale, according to Paula Costello, was when a 10-year old, 2,134sq m (7,000sq ft) home sold for €7 million. She says that in Gainsborough, “four-bed semis of 124.5sq m (1,340sq ft), that sold for €800,000 in peak times are now on the market for €400,000-plus.”

For all that, she says the recession is not “in your face in Malahide. The pubs and restaurants are still full, people have a ‘got to carry on’ attitude. Confidence is returning. We haven’t had any restaurant closures, nor pubs. In fact two pubs are being renovated and adding beer gardens.”

We arrive back into old Malahide and the village via elegant Church Road, where most of the houses date from the 19th. century. One is for sale for €1.9 million. We pass the iconic four-star Grand Hotel and head for the Coast Road. The Grand, a Malahide institution since it opened in 1835, is owned by Matt Ryan and, with 203 rooms and a staff of more than 200, is one of the biggest employers in town.

The coast walk from Malahide to Portmarnock is hugely popular, and not just with locals. An endlessly changing sea, views of Lambay Island, Ireland’s Eye and Howth, and birdlife and hostelries en route make it hard to resist. A wind has come up by now but hearties trek the undulating sands of the Island golf club links course regardless. The area has a second, parklands course (created by Eddie Hackett) in the 27-hole Malahide golf club.

Biscayne, a 1970s Sorohan development of two-storey houses, overlooks the sea and Coast Road. Further back are the Seapark and Muldowney Court developments, built in the same decade.

Robswall, a Gannon Homes development of neo-Georgian style houses and apartments now in the hands of Nama, is off the Coast Road too. Prices there have have dropped by 60 per cent, and there’s a new launch of homes there this weekend. (See p6).

Portmarnock has a large Dunnes Stores that attracts Malahiders doing the big “family shop”. Others choose to travel the 5km to the Pavilions in Swords where there are clothing stores, cinemas and fast food outlets aplenty.

Not that there’s a dearth of shopping facilities in Malahide with supermarkets like SuperValu, Mace, Eurospar and Centra as well as boutiques selling everything from clothes to books, objets d’art and flowers.

Malahide has a high percentage of professionals and young people in its population – a demographic reflected in the high number of hair and beauty salons, jewellers and dealers in antiques and collectibles.

We come back into town via Grove Road, the desirable location of individual houses mostly built in the mid-20th century. St Oliver Plunkett national school on Grove Road is one of the biggest primary schools in the country and takes children from infants to primary-school leaving level. The area has three other primary schools (St Sylvester’s Infant School, Pope John Paul II NS and St Andrews NS) and a secondary school, Pobalscoil Íosa.

People who grow up in Malahide yearn to come back, Paula says. Barry Gibney agrees and so does his nephew, Thomas, a 21-year-old representative of the fourth generation of Gibneys to work in the pub on New Street.

“Young people often buy their first home somewhere affordable like Waterside [a 500-unit residential development 5km from Malahide],” Barry says.

“But they move back when they can; their goal is to live again in Malahide. Parents too, when their children are grown, downsize to apartments in Malahide.

“This is a village more than a town and everyone pulls together, new people and old. People like G V Wright and Canon Brady did a lot for Malahide and it’s thanks to them we’ve got the ‘Malahide Has It Festival’.

“It’s going to be bigger than ever this year, from July 22nd to 24th. There’s been a fear factor since the Celtic Tiger left town but people are getting out there again. This is a great place. I’m here 55 years and I’m not moving anywhere.”

His nephew, Thomas, agrees. “I couldn’t fault anything about Malahide,” he says.