Naas

Naas (; 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, making it the largest town in the North Kildare Suburban region . Naas is also a major commuter suburb, with many people residing there and working in Dublin.

History

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

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". (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. 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).

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

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. A leader of the United Irishmen Theobald Wolfe Tone is buried just outside Naas at Bodenstown.

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.

Media

• 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

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, 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.

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.

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.

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. 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".

Economy

Local industrial enterprises include Kerry Group, Intel, Xilinx, and Hewlett Packard.

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 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. A business park is under construction at Osberstown.

Transport

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. 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.

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

Roads

• M7 Motorway – Connects Naas with Limerick, as well as Cork (via M8) and Waterford (via M9)
• N7 (R448 N From Monread Boulevard to Maudlins Interchange) – Connects Naas with Dublin.
• R410 – Connects Naas with Blessington
• R411 – Connects Naas with Ballymore Eustace
• R448 – Connects Naas with Kilcullen
• R445 – Connects Naas with Newbridge
• R409 – Connects Naas with Caragh
• R407 – Connects Naas with Sallins, Maynooth, Clane and Celbridge.
• (South Outer Ring) – Connects Limerick Road at Primrose (West Naas) with Blessington Road at Mountain View (East Naas)
• (Millennium Blvd Ring Road) – Connects Limerick Road at Newhall Interchange M7 with Monread Road at Millennium Roundabout

Education

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. 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 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 the new primary Naas Community National School at located at Cradockstown.

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

Mayoral remarks

Mayor Darren Scully resigned from office on 22 November 2011 over remarks he made 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. The comments provoked accusations of racism, which he denied. 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.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naas