Naas

Naas
Irish: An Nás / Nás na Ríogh
Town
View of the town and of Naas General Hospital

Seal
Motto(s): Prudens ut Serpens  (Latin)
Wise as a Serpent [1]
Naas
Location in Ireland
Coordinates: 53°13′01″N 6°39′47″W / 53.217°N 6.663°W / 53.217; -6.663Coordinates: 53°13′01″N 6°39′47″W / 53.217°N 6.663°W / 53.217; -6.663
Country Ireland
Province Leinster
County Kildare
Council Kildare County Council
Dáil Éireann Kildare North
European Parliament Midlands–North-West
Elevation 114 m (374 ft)
Population (2016)[2]
 • Urban 21,393
Time zone UTC±0 (WET)
 • Summer (DST) UTC+1 (IST)
Eircode W91
Telephone area code 045
Irish Grid Reference N893196
Website www.naas.ie

Naas (/ˈneɪs/; Irish: Nás na Ríogh, or An Nás [ən̪ˠ n̪ˠaːsˠ]) is the county town of County Kildare in Ireland. In 2016, it had a population of 21,393,[2] making it the second largest town in County Kildare.

History

Naas has been recorded in 3 forms which are written in Irish: Nás na Ríogh, translating as Place of Assembly of the Kings, An Nás translating to the Place of Assembly and Nás Laighean translating to Place of assembly of the Leinster Men.[3]

In the Middle Ages, Naas became a walled market town and was occasionally raided by the O'Byrne and O'Toole clans from the nearby area which became County Wicklow. Naas features on the 1598 map by Abraham Ortelius as "Nosse".[4]

A mayor and council were selected by local merchants and landowners. The mayor was titled the "Sovereign of Naas" and carried a ceremonial mace until the post was abolished in 1840. Naas became known as the "county town" of County Kildare because of its use as a place for trading, public meetings, local administration including law courts, racecourses and the army's Devoy Barracks (closed 1998).[5][6]

Saint David's Castle, a 13th-century Norman castle, was first built c. 1210, although the present structure is a fortified house of the 18th century.

One of the first battles of the rebellion of 1798 took place in Naas on 24 May 1798. During the Battle of Naas, a force of about 1,000 rebels were defeated in an unsuccessful attack on the town.

In 1898, the Local Government Act established Naas Urban District Council (later called Naas Town Council). Its jurisdiction had a circular boundary with a 2.4 km (1.5 mi) radius from the new town hall on the main street. Naas Town Council was abolished in June 2014, when the Local Government Reform Act 2014 dissolved town councils and designated Kildare County Council as the administrative authority for the entire county.[7]

Amenities

St. David's church
Canal Harbour, Basin Street
Canal from Abbey Bridge
South Main Street

Naas has a library, theatre, tax office, five-screen 3D cinema, several pubs, five supermarkets, local authority offices, a number of hotels, and two nightclubs. There are also a number of schools, and Naas General Hospital.

Economy

Local industrial enterprises include a unit of Kerry Group,[8] Intel, Xilinx, and Hewlett Packard.

The town centre of Naas includes shops, restaurants, nightclubs, boutiques and shops. Other retail outlets have been developed in new retail parks and shopping centres on the outskirts of the town.

A shopping centre on Monread Road was completed in 2010 with Ireland's largest Tesco Superstore as the anchor tenant. Other retail parks serve the town on both ends - northern and southern - with outlets such as Harvey Norman, PC World, B&Q, Smyths Toys, Heatons and Halfords.

The Naas/Sallins area is served by two Aldi supermarkets, two Lidl stores, two Supervalu supermarkets, a Tesco Extra supermarket and a smaller Tesco Metro in the town centre . Several smaller foodstores are scattered around the town.

Naas is now considered to be the largest retail centre in County Kildare, primarily due to the mass of bulky goods floorspace located in retail parks in the suburbs.[9] As of 2008, a business park was under construction at Osberstown.[10]

Sport and leisure

"Perpetual Motion", located at the north end of the Naas bypass, created by Rachel Joynt and Remco de Fouw in 1995.

Naas is home to a Gaelic Athletic Association club, athletics club, horse racing facilities,[11] soccer club, tennis club, hockey club, rugby club, and other facilities. These include:

  • Naas GAA is the local Gaelic Athletic Association club.[12]
  • Naas AFC Soccer Club with over 500 players, from 5 years of age to Senior Club.[13]
  • Redwood Naas FC has 2 teams and over 50 players.[14] Redwood's first team compete in the Senior Division of the KDFL.
  • Monread FC Soccer Club[15]
  • Naas United FC Soccer Club[16]
  • Naas Rugby Club (Naas RFC), Forenaughts, Naas.
  • Naas Hockey Club, located at the Carragh Road sport centre.
  • Naas Athletic Club on the Caragh Road.[17]
  • Naas Golf Club, one of three local golf clubs, actually located in Sallins.
  • Naas Cycling Club, amateur cycling club for road cyclists.
  • Naas Lawn Tennis Club.[18] has a 3 court indoor facility.
  • Naas Racecourse, about 1 km from the town centre.[11]
  • Punchestown Racecourse, just to the south west of the town in the parish of Eadestown, where horse racing is frequently held, as well as other international events.
  • Naas Sub Aqua Club
  • Naas Panthers Gymnastics Academy.[19]
  • KBowl, 10-pin bowling.
  • Osborne Stables, Craddockstown, Naas.

The annual Punchestown Race Festival is a major event for a full week in April. The Oxegen music festival was held at Punchestown on the second weekend of July for many years but hasn't been rescheduled since it were cancelled in 2014 as "the promoters, MCD, said the move was due to a lack of headline acts combined with financial demands by agencies".[20]

A public swimming pool and leisure centre was opened on Carragh Avenue in 2009 and the old swimming pool site is now a public car park.

The Moat Theatre operates in the town.

Religion

The town has two Roman Catholic churches, one Church of Ireland church, and one Presbyterian church. The original parish church, St. David's Church, is Church of Ireland. The Roman Catholic parish church, the Church of Our Lady and St. David, dates from 1827. In 1997, the second Catholic Church opened in Ballycane on the east side of town and is dedicated to the Irish Martyrs.. Naas is part of the Diocese of Kildare and Leighlin which is run by Bishop Denis Nulty since August 4, 2013.[21]

Media

County Kildare's local radio station Kfm 97.3FM – 97.6FM is based in the M7 Business Park, west of the town. A regional newspaper, The Leinster Leader, is also published in Naas. County Kildare's local TV station, Kildare TV or KTV, is based in Naas, at the Osprey Hotel complex on John Devoy Avenue.

Transport

The nearby N7 Naas Road connects Naas with Dublin and the M50 motorway (Ireland). Additionally, the M7 Motorway connects Naas with the South and South West.

Naas railway station, which opened on 22 June 1855, closed for passenger traffic on 27 January 1947 to be re-purposed for goods trains. It reopened on 10 March 1947, but was closed 12 years later on 1 April 1959.[22] The Sallins and Naas railway station, located in nearby Sallins, is now used by many residents of Naas and the surrounding area for the daily commute to Dublin, with travel times of under 60 minutes to Dublin's city centre.

The main bus transportation companies serving the area are Bus Éireann, JJ Kavanagh and Sons and Dublin Coach.[23][24][25]

The N7 Naas Road was upgraded in 2006 to a six-lane carriageway with grade-separated interchanges. Additional plans have been laid out to construct a large interchange at Osberstown-Millenium Park as part of the M7 upgrade.[26] A ring road is also being constructed and several sections of the project have already been completed.[27]

Roads

Education

Naas has four secondary schools, St. Mary's College Naas, a girls' convent school, Meanscoil Iognáid Rís Nás na Riogh (Naas CBS ), for boys, and at Piper's Hill campus two schools; Piper's Hill College (formerly St. Patrick's Community College) and Gaelcholáiste Chill Dara, mixed All Irish Secondary School.[28] Naas also has primary schools, including the Convent of Mercy, a girls' school, St. Corban's Boys National School, [29] a school for boys, Scoil Bhríde, a mixed school, Ballycane, another mixed school teaching classes from Junior Infants to 2nd class and St. David's, a mixed school the new primary Naas Community National School at located at Cradockstown.[30]

Naas has a public library which is located in the canal harbour area.[31]

People

Mayoral remarks

Mayor Darren Scully resigned from office on 22 November 2011 over remarks he made[34] on the national radio station 4fm and the local radio station Kfm. The resignation followed the aggression he allegedly received upon stating, "in every single case I've had" that he would no longer represent black Africans.[34] The comments provoked accusations of racism, which he denied.[35][36] He was expelled from Fine Gael in February 2012, but was readmitted to the party in November 2013 ahead of the Irish local elections, 2014.[37][38][39]

Twinning

Naas is twinned with the following places:

See also

References

  1. ↑ "International Civic Heraldry". Ngw.nl. Retrieved 6 July 2012.
  2. 1 2 3 "Sapmap Area - Settlements - Naas". Census 2016. CSO. 2016. Retrieved 12 January 2018.
  3. ↑ "Naas Town". www.naastown.com. Retrieved 18 November 2017.
  4. ↑ "A Modern Depiction of Ireland, One of the British Isles". World Digital Library. 1572. Retrieved 6 July 2012.
  5. ↑ "First ever class at Army Apprentice School to reunite". Leinster Leader. 31 August 2009. Archived from the original on 16 June 2013. Retrieved 6 June 2013.
  6. ↑ Wright, George Newenham (1825). An historical guide to the city of Dublin, illustrated by engravings, and a plan of the city. Dublin: Baldwin, Cradock, and Joy. p. 31.
  7. ↑ "Local Government Reform Act 2014". Irish Statute Book. Office of the Attorney General. Retrieved 27 April 2015.
  8. ↑ "Kerry Group to create up to 900 jobs in Kildare". RTÉ News. 9 October 2012. Retrieved 2013-04-11.
  9. ↑
  10. ↑ "Welcome to Osberstown — Co. Kildare". Osberstown.com. Archived from the original on 13 September 2008. Retrieved 26 October 2008.
  11. 1 2 "Naas Racecourse". Naasracecourse.com. Retrieved 26 October 2008.
  12. ↑ "Naas GAA". Naasgaa.ie. Retrieved 6 July 2012.
  13. ↑ "Naas AFC". Naas AFC. Retrieved 23 June 2009.
  14. ↑ "Redwoodnaasfc.com". Archived from the original on 4 June 2016. Retrieved 4 June 2016.
  15. ↑ "Monread FC". Monread FC. Retrieved 6 July 2012.
  16. ↑ "Naas United Football Club, Donnelly Mirrors: Kildare Soccer Team". Soccer-ireland.com. Retrieved 6 July 2012.
  17. ↑ "Naas Athletic Club". Naas Athletic Club. Retrieved 6 July 2012.
  18. ↑ "Tennis, Fun. Since 1881". Naas Lawn Tennis Club. 30 June 2012. Retrieved 6 July 2012.
  19. ↑ "Naas Panthers Gymnastics Academy". www.gymnasticsireland.com. Retrieved 18 November 2017.
  20. ↑ "Oxegen 2014 music festival cancelled". BBC News. 20 April 2014. Retrieved 18 November 2017.
  21. ↑ "Bishop Denis Nulty: Carlow Cathedral, Kildare and Leighlin Diocese". www.carlowcathedral.ie. Retrieved 18 November 2017.
  22. ↑ "Naas station" (PDF). Railscot – Irish Railways. Retrieved 19 November 2007.
  23. ↑ Bus Eireann Archived 17 October 2011 at the Wayback Machine., Dublin Coach, Rapid Town Link and web site
  24. ↑ Schedule Archived 10 November 2011 at the Wayback Machine. JJ Kavanagh web site
  25. ↑ Archived 19 February 2018 at the Wayback Machine. Dublin Coach Naas Timetable Website
  26. ↑ ARUP Consulting Engineers (November 2008). "M7 Osbertown Interchange: Environmental Impact Statement". Kildare County Council & Naas Town Council. Archived from the original on 25 December 2008. Retrieved 27 February 2009.
  27. ↑ Kildare County Council (March 2008). "Naas Southern Ring Road Opens". Archived from the original on 20 April 2008. Retrieved 6 April 2009.
  28. ↑ "About Piper's Hill". phcol.ie. Retrieved 7 October 2015.
  29. ↑ "St. Corban's B.N.S". Stcorbans.com. Retrieved 6 July 2012.
  30. ↑ Stagg, Emmet (31 January 2015). "Naas Community National School Secures Permanent Accommodation". irish Labour Party. Retrieved 21 July 2015.
  31. ↑ Nass Library web site
  32. ↑ "and www.histpop.org for post 1821 figures, 1813 estimate from Mason's Statistical Survey For a discussion on the accuracy of pre-famine census returns see JJ Lee "On the accuracy of the Pre-famine Irish censuses Irish Population, Economy and Society edited by JM Goldstrom and LA Clarkson (1981) p54, in and also New Developments in Irish Population History, 1700–1850 by Joel Mokyr and Cormac O Grada in The Economic History Review, New Series, Vol. 37, No. 4 (Nov., 1984), pp. 473–488". Cso.ie. Archived from the original on 20 September 2010. Retrieved 6 July 2012.
  33. ↑ "Jenny McCudden and Quincy Lehr to read at City Museum". Galway Independent. 19 March 2008. Retrieved 19 March 2008.
  34. 1 2 "Darren Scully resigns as Mayor of Naas". RTÉ News. 22 November 2011. Archived from the original on 23 November 2011. Retrieved 22 November 2011.
  35. ↑ O'Connor, Niall (23 November 2011). "Pressure mounts on FG to expel race row mayor as history of controversy emerges". Evening Herald. Retrieved 23 November 2011.
  36. ↑ Blaney, Ferghal; Mallon, Sandra (23 November 2011). "Irish town mayor quits after refusing to deal with black people because they are 'aggressive and bad-mannered'". Daily Mail. London. Retrieved 23 November 2011.
  37. ↑ "Councillor Darren Scully restored to Fine Gael fold after expulsion". RTÉ. 5 November 2013.
  38. ↑ O'Connell, Hugh (2012-02-02). "Darren Scully loses Fine Gael whip after remarks about African immigrants". TheJournal.ie.
  39. ↑ Hosford, Paul (2013-11-05). "Racism row councillor re-admitted to Fine Gael". TheJournal.ie.
  40. 1 2 3 4 5 "Naas Town Council – 2006 report – Page 4 – Twinning in Naas" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 6 March 2012. Retrieved 6 July 2012.

Sources

  • Nolan W. & McGrath T. (eds.) Kildare History and Society (Geography, Dublin 2006) ISBN 978-0-906602-57-7
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