The village of Slane is poignant proof that, no matter how many estate agents claim otherwise, location is not everything, writes Frank McNally.
It occupies a site of extravagant natural beauty, where the juxtaposition of woodland, river, hill, and valley could have been designed for the cover of a chocolate box. Besides being pretty to look at, it also boasts more heritage per square foot than many great cities.
The surrounding countryside would serve as a theme park for all of Irish history, with Slane as its interpretative centre. Exhibits run from pagan times to early Christianity; from the Vikings to the Battle of the Boyne; from the first World War to Independence - a story encapsulated in the tragedy of local poet Francis Ledwidge.
More recently, 25 years of rock concerts in the local castle have added a modern chapter, in the process bringing the area's history right back to the dinosaurs (last year's Rolling Stones gig).
Not only does it have a wealth of scenery and heritage, Slane is rich in topsoil too. The surrounding farmland is some of Ireland's finest. And to round off the real estate blurb, the village enjoys unparalleled access. Dublin is a mere 40 minutes away and, thanks to the M1, Belfast is a lot closer than it used to be. There are probably two-and-a-half million people now living within a two-hour radius by road.
Yet despite all these advantages, Slane is dying on its feet. Shops and pubs are closing. Local industry has all but disappeared. Commercial life in the village seems to be slowly leaching away, much of it washed down the river towards Drogheda.
The decline will be obvious even to motorists passing through on the old Dublin-Derry road. But it is most acutely felt on the ground. Even vital services have begun to go missing. For the past 18 months, Slane has been without a doctor (although the HSE is currently trying to rectify this).
The irony of its situation is that the village is still choked with traffic, most of which doesn't stop there, because - among other reasons - it can't: there's no place to park. Locals have long campaigned for a bypass, and one is planned, eventually - part of a dual-carriageway that will stretch from Ashbourne to Ardee. In the meantime, Slane has the worst kind of bypass: one that goes right through the town.
Adding insult to injury is the nature of the traffic. In the past, one of Slane's strongest claims for road relief was a series of accidents, several of them fatal, involving lorries and the old bridge - as dangerous as it is picturesque - across the Boyne. The M1 has drawn some of the traffic away in recent years. For truck drivers trying to avoid the motorway toll, however, Slane's attractions have only increased.
The loss of industry was a longer-term trend. But a modern milestone in the village's decline was the establishment of the interpretative centre, Brú na Bóinne, at Donore. Several miles south of Slane, the development is on the opposite side of the river from the great megalithic monuments - Knowth, Dowth, and Newgrange - which it seeks to interpret. Even so, since the 1990s, all visitors are now funnelled through there.
Road signs were subsequently amended to economise the truth of Newgrange's actual location - one of the results being that car sat-nav systems continue to deliver drivers direct to the monument, from which they now have to take a cross-country detour to buy admission tickets. But the big loser was Slane, for which the net effect was as if Newgrange itself had been relocated.
Elsewhere, the problem has been a simple lack of development. In contrast to Newgrange, the Hill of Slane, the village's crowning glory - where St Patrick lit a fire to announce the arrival of Christianity to those at Tara - remains uninterpreted.
Other potential attractions such as St Erc's Hermitage are little known to outsiders. And despite their fame, the annual spectacles at the castle do not directly benefit the local community (although the council did levy €80,000 from the Madonna concert).
With its beautiful environs and historic heart, Slane should have been like one of those thriving villages in England's Cotswolds. Instead, its economy is now about as well-founded as the legend of the four houses that face each other around the village cross-roads. (Popular story has it that an 18th-century Viscount Conyngham built these for his warring daughters; but apparently he didn't have four daughters, warring or otherwise.) Unfortunately, it seems the uniqueness of Slane's location has worked against it, discouraging development and stifling community life. Even the local GAA pitch is several miles distant from the village.
But the decline reached a point a couple of years ago when some locals finally shouted stop. They knew it was already beyond the reach of any one organisation to reverse the trend. So they drew all the residential, cultural, and sporting groups in the area - some 24 or 25 of them - into the Slane Community Forum. And one of the first things the forum did was to commission an urban design specialist to come up with a plan.
Tonight, 18 months later, Prof Philip Geoghegan of UCD presents his "village design statement". The event takes place in the Conyngham Arms Hotel, where among those attending will be the Minister for Transport, Mr Dempsey. Being from Meath, the Minister should be yet another of Slane's natural advantages, although that remains to be seen. At any rate, the battle to prevent the death of an Irish town starts here.