TV3's operations manager, Aine Healy, and her husband, Kevin O'Dea, are among the many young buyers attracted to the old-style character of Chapelizod.

"This is our second house in the village. We bought our first house four years ago when everybody else was buying one of the new city centre apartments. It was one of the small cottages by the old church and cost us £79,000 at the time.

The two-storey cottage had a sittingroom, two steps down to the kitchen, a bathroom and one-and-a-half bedrooms upstairs. No garden. It was all pine and antique tiles in the bathroom - we just moved in and it suited us perfectly.

Then we moved down the Main Street to a more expensive three-bedroom house on Hibernian Terrace. It's really nice, built at the end of the last century and full of character, with a small yard garden with a walled surround. There's not a huge variety of affordable three-bedroom houses in the area, so we were very fortunate.

As locals, we are looking forward to the Mullingar pub being renovated - I hear there's going to be a restaurant. We've been to one of the residents' association's meetings. Chapelizod has a strong committee passionate about local sites.

We have very friendly neighbours if you need a loan of a ladder or anything. They welcome people to the area. When we came here, they popped in and laughed at the price we paid for the house. The people at the Villager pub are very nice and always ready to chat.

It's an ideal area for young couples. High prices and the traffic have driven a lot of families out of the area. I can't imagine having a family so close to the main road because the gardens are so small and the traffic is bad. Very few schoolchildren come from the old village now, even with the park across the way.

Undesirables in some parts of the park near the gates put people off going there. Some villagers are concerned that these people are going in and out of the park at night through the small lanes. Often we'd stroll through the Furry Glen and back down Knockmaroon Hill - it's a very nice walk. In the summer they have a village sports day. Older people in the village put on a photographic exhibition last year in the running club hall.

We don't ever drive to town. There's a bus corridor all the way and it takes 15 minutes. Yet it feels like you're in the countryside in Chapelizod. It's nice that in this day and age you can still find such a perfect village, sitting there right beside the Phoenix Park."