Referring to plans build a huge shopping centre and 600 houses in the market town of Blessington, the Commercial Property supplement of this newspaper reported this week: "Property adviser Bill Mulrooney, who is a member of the five-man consortium which also includes builder Brendan Fitzsimons, said Blessington was one of the few remaining satellite villages that had not been disturbed by the rush to build houses."
Well not up until now, that is. Fortunately that scandalously undisturbed nature of Blessington will be brought to an end, thanks in no small measure to the vigilance of the bold Bill and his chums; oh how they must have chortled with glee when they observed an available 233-acre site adjoining Blessington's heart and yelped, Look! Not even disturbed!
Actually, that isn't quite true: Blessington has been much disturbed in recent times, with considerable housing developments under way there. On the Naas road, a line of venerable broadwood trees was felled just the other week to make way for more bungalows, and an entire estate is being constructed alongside the site that Bill and his buddies bought for £15 million.
But that is not the point; the real significance is in the perception that Blessington had not yet been "disturbed by the rush to build more houses". For it seems that in the commercial culture which is engulfing much of Ireland and which perceives peace as an affront to economic activity, to disturb the undisturbed becomes mandatory; to anish tranquillity with traffic a social duty; to vanquish sleepy inertia with a frantic busyness a categorical imperative.
Lakeside town
Yet I have to admit that I do wonder about our Bill. If correctly quoted, his remarks suggest either that he is a remarkably honest man, or that he is an utter imbecile. Only the icily candid, or the incurably cretinous, would make such an observation about the undisturbed nature of one of the most charming lakeside towns in all of Leinster. And as I wonder about Bill, I wonder about his knowledge of the place he is set to transform.
For has he read anything about the town? Far from being a mere satellite, Blessington is an old place, with old ways. It was given a charter just 330 years ago, in 1669, and its corporation was styled, "The Sovereign Bailiffs and Burgesses of the Borough and the Town of Blessington." No mention, do you see, of the word "satellite" for a place which once returned two members to the old House of Commons until the Act of Union. It had a petty sessions; and the Marquess of Downshire, as the town proprietor, even had the power to hold a manorial court.
Primate Boyle
The parish of Blessington, called Burbage, consisted of 17,570 acres, and the Protestant church was erected at the expense of Primate Boyle, who also supplied the bells, which each Saturday evening ever since have rung and still ring a full peal, a spine-tingling clarion over the town. Nor is that the only disturbance to speak of in Blessington. Primate Boyle's house - as far as I can make out, pretty much where Bill and his buddies intend to end the shamefully undisturbed nature of Blessington - was burnt down by insurgents in 1798.
The old turnpike from Dublin to Carlow ran through Blessington, and down it rumbled the Waterford and Kilkenny mails. A delightful coachinn, the Downshire Arms, to this day remains a relic of old ways, in which pinafored waitresses serve afternoon teas, and an unfeigned and native courtesy remains the prevailing ethic. Yes, yes yes, I grant you, relatively undisturbed, but no doubt that delinquency can soon be corrected.
But stay: the plans for Blessington announced so far merely cover some 70 acres of the 233 acres Bill and his buddies have acquired. This leaves over 150 acres to play with. One can built a lot of houses - 2,000 or so - on all that land. And one can, thank God, bring Blessington into line with all those other communities across Leinster which have been so spendidly disturbed by the rush to build more houses.
True satellite
In other words, Blessington, salvation is at hand; even though you recently have had numerous houses added to your housing stock, these, apparently are not enough. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, will follow, and you can be reduced to a true satellite town, such as those which characterise other places in Wicklow, Kildare and Meath. The people of Blessington who do their purchases in locally owned, thoroughly idiosyncratic (and now probably doomed) little shops, will soon be able to browse through a large, presumably British-owned supermarket, or, as in North Kildare, not even bother to shop locally and instead shop after work in Dublin.
As the dormitory suburb of New Blessington becomes more diffuse, no doubt that sense of community which causes bellringers to gather each Saturday in the church tower to toll a campanate clarion in praise of their Maker, will in time perish; and all that will be heard on a Sabbath's eve will be the electronic peal of cash-registers counting euros in the supermarket. Then might we all fall on our knees in gratitude that another citadel of the undisturbed had fallen to the undimmed and indimmable roar of progress.