A Glimpse of Maynooth

On September 15, I arrived at the National University of Ireland, Maynooth for my year as a Mitchell Scholar. In the three weeks since then, I've learned a lot about the town from local residents and my fellow students at NUIM.

Maynooth's population has grown by the thousands in recent years, up to around 11,000, because of the town's proximity to Dublin as well as the Intel and Hewlett Packard plants in the nearby town of Leixlip (which collectively employ over seven thousand people). While residents welcome this growth, they also have concerns--particularly in this time of economic uncertainty.

In the first place, the housing boom in and around Maynooth has not been accompanied by a parallel growth in services or complimentary facilities. While brand new housing and apartment developments are appearing in all directions, new schools, shops and other services are slower to arrive. In addition to the basics of cafes, banks, etc., the town does have five major grocery chains, a large shopping centers opened in 2005 and another on the way--opening toward the end of 2008. But residents nevertheless express that the medical and educational and even the shopping facilities are either overcrowded or simply lacking.

It seems that this trend is a problematic one in many of the small-but-growing towns around Dublin. And now, with economic crisis looming and many homes remaining unpurchased or even unfinished, residents are left wondering whether the services needed to accommodate the heightened populations in their towns will ever arrive.

The growth in places like Maynooth will surely continue, but builders of both commercial and retail property may be slower in developing big projects in the months ahead. Fears about the fate of foreign companies like Intel and HP also impact the doubts' about Maynooth's growth, with many residents here following the American bailout plan and economic news as if it determined their own tax rates and paychecks--declaring that the area would be decimated if HP or Intel decided to leave.

I'll be posting more information on foreign manufacturing and research centers in Ireland, from Apple to Intel to Pepsi, in the day ahead.