Naas

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Naas
An Nás / Nás na Ríogh
Town
View of the town and of Naas General Hospital
View of the town and of Naas General Hospital
Official seal of Naas
Seal
Motto: Prudens ut Serpens  (Latin)
Wise as a Serpent [1]
Naas is located in Ireland
Naas
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)
 • Urban 21,393
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 2011, it had a population of 20,713,[2] making it the largest town in the North Kildare Suburban region .[citation needed] Naas is also a major commuter suburb, with many people residing there and working in Dublin.[citation needed]

History[edit]

The Irish language name for Naas, Nás na Ríogh, literally translates as Meeting Place of the Kings.[3] The town historically hosted meetings of pre-Norman Irish kings from the Kingdom of Leinster.[citation needed] After the Norman invasion in 1169–71 AD, some meetings of the Parliament of Ireland were held in the town.[citation needed] Many of the earlier settlers in Kildare were Cambro-Normans from Wales therefore the medieval church was dedicated to Saint David.[citation needed]

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] (It is worth noticing the "O Byrne" and "O Tolo" (O'Toole) names appearing prominently on the map).

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

In the former Parliament of Ireland, established in 1297 and abolished in 1800, the constituency of Naas had two seats.[citation needed]

One of the first battles of the rebellion of 1798 took place in Naas on 24 May 1798 when a force of about 1,000 rebels were defeated in an unsuccessful attack on the town.[citation needed] A leader of the United Irishmen Theobald Wolfe Tone is buried just outside Naas at Bodenstown.[citation needed]

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.[citation needed] 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]

Media[edit]

  • County Kildare's local radio station Kfm 97.3FM – 97.6FM is located in the M7 Business Park, a suburb west of the town.
  • The regional newspaper, The Leinster Leader, is published in Naas.
  • County Kildare's local TV Station Kildare TV or KTV is located in Naas West based in the Osprey Hotel Complex on John Devoy Avenue.

Places of interest[edit]

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

Places of interest in the town include: a library, tax office, a new Gaelic Athletic Association club, athletics club, a range of schools, Naas General Hospital, horse racecourse,[8] soccer club, tennis club, hockey club, rugby club, two major nightclubs, five-screen 3D cinema, several pubs, five supermarkets, county council offices, a number of hotels and the new Moat Theatre.[citation needed]

A large new public swimming pool and leisure centre opened on Carragh Avenue in 2009 and the old swimming pool site is now a public car park.[citation needed]

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.[citation needed] In 1997, the second Catholic Church opened in Ballycane on the east side of town and is dedicated to the Irish Martyrs.[citation needed]. Naas is part of the Diocese of Kildare and Leighlin which is run by Bishop Denis Nulty since August 4, 2013.[9]

There are two racecourses near Naas. Punchestown Racecourse is just to the south west of the town in the parish of Eadestown, and Naas Racecourse is about 1 km from the town centre.[8] The annual Punchestown Race Festival is a major event for a fell 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".[10]

Economy[edit]

Local industrial enterprises include Kerry Group,[11] Intel,[citation needed] Xilinx,[citation needed] and Hewlett Packard.[citation needed]

The town centre of Naas includes many shops, restaurants, nightclubs and boutiques such as Supervalu, Boots, Eddie Rockets and Carphone Warehouse, but over the years, as a consequence of the expansion of the town, most new 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. Costa Coffee, O'Briens Off-Licence, Nicola Ross, Naas Credit Union, Boots, Argos, Vodafone and Subway Sandwiches also trade in the centre. A second McDonald's + drive-through opened beside the centre in 2015.

Retail parks serve the town on both ends - North and South - with outlets such as Harvey Norman, PC World, B&Q, Smyths Toys, Heatons and Halfords.

The Naas/Sallins area is served by numerous supermarkets: 2 Aldi stores, 2 Lidl stores, 2 Supervalu supermarkets, a large Tesco Extra supermarket and a smaller Tesco Metro in the town centre. Several smaller foodstores are scattered around the town.

Naas is now considered[by whom?] 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.[12] A business park is under construction at Osberstown.[13]

Transport[edit]

Naas has a variety of functioning transport infrastructure. The nearby N7 Naas Road connects Naas with Dublin and the M50 Motorway. Additionally, the M7 Motorway connects Naas with the South and South West.

The 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.[14] 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 frequent trains throughout the day and travel times of under 60 minutes to Dublin's city centre.

Naas is connected to other main towns and cities by bus services. The main bus transportation companies serving the area are Bus Éireann and JJ Kavanagh and Sons.[15][16]

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.[17] A ring road is also being constructed and several sections of the project have already been completed.[18]

Roads[edit]

Education[edit]

Naas has four secondary schools, St. Mary's, a girls' convent school, the Christian Brothers School, for boys, and Piper's Hill College (formerly St. Patrick's Community College), a mixed school and a Gaelscoil secondary school which is located where St. Patrick's community college formally resided.[19] A gaelscoil and the Irish Vocational Education Association (IVEA) headquarters are also located in the Piper's Hill campus. Naas also has primary schools, including the Convent of Mercy, a girls' school, St. Corban's [20] a school for boys, Scoil Bhride, a mixed school and Ballycane, another mixed school teaching classes from Junior Infants to 2nd class and St. David's, a mixed school[citation needed] the new primary Naas Community National School at located at Cradockstown.[21]

Naas has a public library which is located in the canal harbour area.[22]

Mayoral remarks[edit]

Mayor Darren Scully resigned from office on 22 November 2011 over remarks he made[23] 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.[23] The comments provoked accusations of racism, which he denied.[24][25] 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.[26][27][28]

People[edit]

Sport[edit]

"Perpetual Motion", located at the north end of the Naas By-Pass, created by Rachel Joynt and Remco de Fouw in 1995.
  • Naas GAA is the local Gaelic Athletic Association club.[31]
  • Naas AFC Soccer Club [2] with over 500 players, from 5 years of age, to Senior club.[32]
  • Redwood Naas FC [3] 2 teams and over 50 players. Redwood's first team compete in the Senior Division of the KDFL.
  • Monread FC Soccer Club[33]
  • Naas United FC Soccer Club[34]
  • Naas Rugby Club (Naas RFC), Forenaughts, Naas. One of the largest memberships for a senior club in Leinster.[citation needed]
  • Naas Hockey Club, located at the Carragh road sport center. They are currently in division 3.
  • Naas Athletic Club on the Caragh Road.[35]
  • Naas Golf Club is one of three local golf clubs and is located in Sallins.
  • Naas Lawn Tennis Club.[36] is one of Ireland's premium tennis clubs, with the recent edition of a 3 court indoor facility.
  • Naas Racecourse.
  • Punchestown, horse racing is frequently held, as well as other international events.
  • KBowl 10 pin Bowling.
  • Osborne Stables, Craddockstown, Naas.
  • Naas Sub Aqua Club
  • Naas Panthers Gymnastics Academy.[37]

Twinning[edit]

Main article: List of twin towns and sister cities in the Republic of Ireland

Naas is twinned with the following places:

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ "International Civic Heraldry". Ngw.nl. Retrieved 6 July 2012. 
  2. ^ "Naas Legal Town Results". Central Statistics Office. 2011. Retrieved 5 August 2012. 
  3. ^ http://www.naastown.com/history.asp
  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. ^ a b "Naas Racecourse". Naasracecourse.com. Retrieved 26 October 2008. 
  9. ^ http://www.carlowcathedral.ie/our-parish/bishop-of-kildare-and-leighlin-denis-nulty/
  10. ^ http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-27094144
  11. ^ "Kerry Group to create up to 900 jobs in Kildare". RTÉ News. 9 October 2012. Retrieved 2013-04-11. 
  12. ^ [1][dead link]
  13. ^ "Welcome to Osberstown — Co. Kildare". Osberstown.com. Archived from the original on 13 September 2008. Retrieved 26 October 2008. 
  14. ^ "Naas station" (PDF). Railscot – Irish Railways. Retrieved 19 November 2007. 
  15. ^ Bus Eireann Archived 17 October 2011 at the Wayback Machine., Dublin Coach, Rapid Town Link and web site
  16. ^ Schedule JJ Kavanagh web site
  17. ^ 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. 
  18. ^ Kildare County Council (March 2008). "Naas Southern Ring Road Opens". Archived from the original on 20 April 2008. Retrieved 6 April 2009. 
  19. ^ "About Piper's Hill". phcol.ie. Retrieved 7 October 2015. 
  20. ^ "St. Corban's B.N.S". Stcorbans.com. Retrieved 6 July 2012. 
  21. ^ Stagg, Emmet (31 January 2015). "Naas Community National School Secures Permanent Accommodation". irish Labour Party. Retrieved 21 July 2015. 
  22. ^ Nass Library web site
  23. ^ a b c "Darren Scully resigns as Mayor of Naas". RTÉ News. 22 November 2011. Archived from the original on 23 November 2011. Retrieved 22 November 2011. 
  24. ^ 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. 
  25. ^ 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. 
  26. ^ "Councillor Darren Scully restored to Fine Gael fold after expulsion". RTÉ. 5 November 2013. 
  27. ^ O'Connell, Hugh (2012-02-02). "Darren Scully loses Fine Gael whip after remarks about African immigrants". TheJournal.ie. 
  28. ^ Hosford, Paul (2013-11-05). "Racism row councillor re-admitted to Fine Gael". TheJournal.ie. 
  29. ^ "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. 
  30. ^ "Jenny McCudden and Quincy Lehr to read at City Museum". Galway Independent. 19 March 2008. Retrieved 19 March 2008. 
  31. ^ "Naas GAA". Naasgaa.ie. Retrieved 6 July 2012. 
  32. ^ "Naas AFC". Naas AFC. Retrieved 23 June 2009. 
  33. ^ "Monread FC". Monread FC. Retrieved 6 July 2012. 
  34. ^ "Naas United Football Club, Donnelly Mirrors: Kildare Soccer Team". Soccer-ireland.com. Retrieved 6 July 2012. 
  35. ^ "Naas Athletic Club". Naas Athletic Club. Retrieved 6 July 2012. 
  36. ^ "Tennis, Fun. Since 1881". Naas Lawn Tennis Club. 30 June 2012. Retrieved 6 July 2012. 
  37. ^ http://www.gymnasticsireland.com/local-clubs/specific/69/naas-panthers-gymnastics-academy.  Missing or empty |title= (help)
  38. ^ a b c d e "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[edit]

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

External links[edit]

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