Regular travellers from Galway to Dublin will remember Kinnegad with mixed feelings as the most notorious bottleneck of the journey. Because traffic slowed to a crawl here, people invariably abandoned their cars and piled into Harry's or the Cottage restaurant to while away an hour. There was always a buzz about the place.
Galway traffic now by-passes the village, although trucks bound for Mullingar and Sligo continue to thunder through. The restaurants and cafes are noticeably empty on weekdays and the Galway trade is sorely missed. Most small towns, when by-passed, take on a smart "resurrected" look, with cobbled streets, flower tubs and trendy boutiques. So far this hasn't happened in Kinnegad, but there will be huge improvements once the town Development Plan is put into action. You could say Kinnegad is "at the drawing-board stage" just now and everything is possible.
The motorway, which now ends at Enfield, will be extended the full 38 miles from Dublin to Kinnegad by 2005, says project engineer Michael Nolan. Work is expected to start in 2002. A dual carriageway from Kinnegad to Galway will also be finished by 2005, giving the town huge commercial significance.
Local developers and involved residents are sitting down with Westmeath County Council this week to decide the eventual shape and size of the town - in particular, how much more residential development should be allowed. A draft of the plan, which is being drawn up by DTZ Pieda Consulting, will be going on display in mid-December.
Kinnegad's strategic location at the junction of the N6 and N4 motorways and the first port of call in the Border, Midlands and Western (BMW) region makes it an ideal town for industrial and commercial growth - a boost the town needs to provide jobs for its rapidly expanding population. Lagan Cement's new factory on the Galway road will provide some employment in the near future.
Since 1996, when the population was recorded as 517, planning permission has been granted for 450 new houses, most of which are now occupied by Dublin families. Those who moved into the Heathfield and Riverside estates in the past couple of years say they would never go back to life in the city.
Kinnegad is an hour from Dublin in good traffic conditions, the road network is improving and the community has a positive attitude to newcomers. Their energy could be channelled into lobbying for a swimming pool, a secondary school or a fire station, a few of the facilities the town lacks.
The trouble is, like most commuters who travel long distances, they tend to rest at weekends and have little free time. When one well-meaning parish worker knocked on doors in one of the new estates around 8 o'clock one evening to welcome them to the area, most of the residents were already in their dressing gowns.
Sports facilities are not great, although the GAA has just been granted planning permission for a club house on its new site on the Mullingar road. This will provide basketball, tennis and bowling in addition to football. The local primary school, which a few years ago was in danger of losing a teacher because of falling numbers, is now bursting at the seams and using prefabs.
A secondary school is much needed, as children are bussed to Rochfortbridge, Edenderry or Mullingar at present. There are several local creches and a playgroup in St Finian's Community Hall, where you can also sign up for Irish dancing classes. Classes in first aid, stress management and creative writing are run by Kinnegad Women's Group in the Michael Scott-designed VEC building on Main Street. The ICA meets here on the first Monday of the month.
Plunkett Close opened its doors last week. This is a group of retirement bungalows with its own community centre, administered and run by Gertie and Eddie Costelloe of Kinnegad and Coralstown Social Services. A branch of the Independent Living Network is also operating in Kinnegad, started by stroke victim Michael Cannon and his wife Judy.
The name Kinnegad means "The Head of Witches" from witch-hazel reeds growing by the Kinnegad River. It was a busy industrial place at the beginning of the 18th century, when hatters and nailers traded here and it was a stopping-off point for the mail coach. The town declined with the building of the railway and canal, returning to prominence with the advent of car travel.
A legacy of the glory days of the traffic hold-ups is that every other premises serves food and Kinnegad has a deserved reputation as the best-fed village in the country. Yet another restaurant is in the pipeline for Main Street. Local developer Robert Bagnell, the entrepreneur behind the smart new Super Valu at the top end of town, has applied to build a restaurant, apartment and townhouse scheme on the area around Donnelly's pub.
With all this promised activity, getting in now while prices are still low is probably a good idea, though the problem is that there is very little for sale in the town at present (see StreetWise). Planning applications have been lodged for 400 houses on the Athlone side of town and for 100 houses on the old GAA pitch on the Mullingar Road. An 18-acre site near Killucan with planning for 100 houses is being sold by joint agents Harrington Sheahan and Hamilton Osborne King. Current development has almost used up the existing capacity of the upgraded sewerage scheme and this will be reviewed by Westmeath County Council as part of the new development plan.
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