IN . . . TALLAGHT Standing room only as growth goes on

In the first of a new series, Paul O'Dohertygets out and about in Tallaght, where soaring apartments and shopping plazas form a new centre.

THERE WAS a time when you could join the dots between the villages - Old Bawn, Firhouse, Belgard, Kilnamanagh, Jobstown and Tymon North, to name but a few - that make up the Tallaght conurbation, such was the free space that was lost between them.

How times have changed. Today it's more difficult to discern gaps, with housing estates, green spaces, apartment blocks, office buildings, hotels and shopping quarters nestling together with standing room only, like crowd supporters on a busy terrace at the foot of the Dublin mountains.

The population has swelled to 83,759 (including Firhouse and Bohernabreena), with 3,000 people working in The Square and 2,747 in Tallaght Hospital, and 1,500 in South Dublin County Council.

The Square, for many the village's focal point and new village centre, looks decidedly old hat in an emerging 21st century Tallaght, overlooking the Tower Hotel and Eon and Arena apartment blocks, and the half-built concrete mess that will soon house Shamrock Rovers football club across the road.

While more built-up apartments and the emerging Tallaght Cross development come ever closer, the next decade will see even more growth.

Some 3,000 apartments as well as more retail and office space are to be built.

The Square is due to be redeveloped and extended. A new fashion centre is planned while six new crèches, a restaurant quarter, six underground car-parks and a bridge connecting The Square and Sean Walsh park are also due to be built.

The old village itself is now a professional enclave where solicitors' practices, advice centres, estate agents and banks seem more at home than the odd couple of pubs and takeaways.

With infuriatingly slow traffic re-enacting de Valera's dancing at every crossroads, on a half-busy day finding a car-park space is almost impossible - the townland is a magnet for those attending the hospital, DIT, South Dublin County Council office buildings, Civic Theatre or shopping at the Square.

How's the market?

The Luas red line is the real lifeblood of the market with much of the investment depending on plans to extend the line in both directions - from Citywest to the airport in the next six years.

Slick new designer grey and black-stoned architecture pavements at Tallaght Cross have already encouraged Marks & Spencer, Captain America's and the Tallaght Cross and Glashaus hotels to set up home in this mini-metropolis.

Away from the hub, there is everything from one-bedroom apartments to three-bedroom semis available with nearly all new developments going up rather than out.

You can get a two-bedroom apartment for €290,000, a typical three-bed semi for €380,000 while a four-bed house on an acre with city and mountain views costs €1.2 million.

And to rent?

Scarce one-bedroom apartments fetch €1,100 a month; a two-bed unit at Tuansgate coming to market this week with Wiltshire Property Letting is asking €1,300.

Going out?

Not exactly a Michelin-star playground with plenty of fast-food options, pubs and nightclubs.

The arts are well serviced with the Civic Theatre, 12 cinemas at the UCI, and a new community arts centre on the way.

The farmer's market will also reopen in May.

Price of a pint

In The Foxes Covert, €3.95 in the bar, €4.15 in the lounge.

Good for families?

There are crèche facilities at Humpty Dumpty Montessori - places at €190 a week are available. With 35-odd national schools (two more promised) and 10 secondary schools, places exist if you've lived in the area over time, as in a lot of areas around Dublin.

While many children in the area don't make it to third-level, the IT Tallaght on the doorstep is attractive for those who do.

What's to do?

Currently Henry James's The Turn of the Screw, and Ballet Ireland's annual summer school (July) at the Civic Theatre, ongoing writers' groups, open art and senior sounds at the Arts Centre, Tallaght festival in October, and Premier League football from 2009.

Home to . . .

Footballers Robbie Keane and Richard Dunne.

Locals say

"It's completely different from when I arrived here 22 years ago, with shops aplenty and I don't have to put on my Wellington boots every day to go through the dirt to get to the only shopping centre we had in Kilnamanagh" (Mary Duffy). "Traffic is a disgrace" (Tony Adderley).