"Just down there, all along here, another one in at the back over there." Charlie McDermott stands at the door of the pharmacy in Howth he has run for the last 31 years, pointing out the new apartments which have mushroomed on his street, along with scores of others, in the past five years.
Howth is changing. Combined pressure from urban Dublin and the new Special Amenity Area Order (SAAO) limiting development on the peninsula is pushing prices up and squeezing services out.
Howth Chamber of Commerce has met the Fingal county manager to protest that the village is losing its services. It believes big corporations are being tempted by developers to sell lucrative sites.
New apartments are tucked into any corner developers can get planning permission for, but boarded-up buildings, which tell of a disappearing way of life, brood over the quaintness of the seaside village.
Howth's only bank, three of its four hotels, the only two petrol stations and an attached mechanic's garage have all pulled down their shutters in the last two years, the petrol stations both closing in the same week last month.
"We're very, very concerned about this. It's absolutely ridiculous", says Mr Jack Kinane, president of the Howth, Sutton and Baldoyle Chamber of Commerce. "It's bad enough that we lost the bank, but losing two garages is a major blow."
There is a campaign against the council's plan to knock down the existing library building and develop the site, even though the development will include a new, bigger library.
It's not that industry is abandoning Howth - fishing companies such as Beshoff's, Wright's and Oceanpath keep the harbour busy; software company Datalex has its headquarters there; and restaurants are opening all the time to soak up the cash of the couples moving into the new apartments.
Long-time residents feel the developments, and consequent huge increases in property values in the area, where a quarteracre site will now fetch between £300,000 and £400,000, are fuelling the exodus.
Mr Kinane is in no doubt. "We have no problem with development, but not if it's at the cost of the local amenities."
Texaco claims its Howth petrol station was not economically viable, although, according to the Chamber of Commerce, 10,000 people live on the peninsula and, on most days of the week and particularly at weekends, the pier is thronged with walkers.
The Bank of Ireland points to new technologies and rationalisation and says that Howth is now serviced by the banks in Sutton Cross, two miles away. Bank customers argue that the numbers using e-banking are overestimated and say that the banks in Sutton cannot cope with the increased demand.
Howth is an attractive seaside village. The problem is that it is also tantalisingly close to a centre of population bursting with people looking for homes who have money to spend.
"It's become very attractive for upmarket apartments," acknowledges the Fingal county manager, Mr William Sosse, who says that the SAAO which came into effect last November will "seriously restrict any new development on the peninsula".
The SAAO is a victory for Howth's residents, who have fought a determined battle to keep their back garden. It also preserves the amenity for the inhabitants of the expanding concrete sprawl of Dublin. But it will put further pressure on property prices.
Even before the SAAO came into effect, Fingal County Council had begun to resist the clamour from developers for permission to build apartments. Out of requests for 208 apartments since 1997, permission has so far been granted for 95. Only one major development - 85 apartments and nine houses at Corr Castle - has been allowed. An extension to the Baily Court Hotel was recently refused, and the Howth Lodge Hotel's proposal for 69 apartments was refused by An Bord Pleanala on appeal.
Perhaps the key to the change in Howth is not the fact of new development, but the type of people moving in. Cash-rich and time-poor young people working in the city, they are not spending enough time in Howth to make their money count.
The older residents are still there, however, and they want to avail of services common to any Irish village. They want a bank to put their money in, a petrol station to refuel their cars, hotels to celebrate their weddings and mourn their deaths, just like any other village. But just like any other village in Ireland now, Howth is changing.