Campaigners in Meakstown push for their first school, to help build community

Outside Meakstown Community Centre on Monday evening, a running group stretches. Inside, the sports hall is busy with volleyball training.

The well-used community hub opened in November 2024, in this area south-west of the airport, north-east of Charlestown, and north-west of Ballymun.

It took 20 years of fighting to get the centre built, says Neil Dowling, sitting in the meeting room just inside the centre’s front door.

The same goes for the nearby playground, he says – both amenities were the result of a grassroots, volunteer-led movement. “All the people in the community came together.”

It shouldn't take that, he said. “We shouldn't need to go with a begging bowl.”

But given they have to, to get what is needed, people in Meakstown community are now rallying around another goal, says Dowling – schools for the area.

Meakstown has no schools, primary or secondary, right now. Its population is growing, says Dowling, a member of the Meakstown School Campaign.

A similar complaint rumbles across other city neighbourhoods.

So, the Meakstown campaign has allied with Educate D8, and the Killester Raheny Clontarf School Campaign, to challenge the Department of Education’s recent announcement that it has no plans for any new mainstream schools until at least 2032.

Some areas are fighting for non-denominational options for children. In Meakstown, people simply want a school – any kind of school, says Lynda Clarke, another campaign member.

“We could really do with a primary and a secondary,” says Clarke. “Ideally, on the same campus.”

The Department of Education takes a broader perspective when planning schools, said a department spokesperson.

Meakstown is in the "Finglas East-Ballymun D11" school planning area, which stretches from the airport south to Glasnevin Cemetery, from Finglas Road east to Ballymun Road.

Pupils in this broader area are served by 10 primary schools and one post-primary school, the department spokesperson said, "and also attend schools in the surrounding school planning areas where capacity has been provided to accommodate them".

But campaigners in Meakstown say they want their own school, one they could walk or cycle to, to end long school runs by car or bus – and to help them build a sense of community in the area.

Long school runs

Clarke says her son attends a second-level Gaelscoil in Cabra.

It takes him an hour to get there in the mornings, given the traffic, she says. Many routes to schools outside of Meakstown are too dangerous for youngsters to walk or cycle, Clarke says.

Dowling’s son goes to a non-denominational school. He takes two buses, says Dowling.

He knows a family who have to get one child to Cabra and another to Coolock in the mornings, he says.

The need analysis points to a big cohort of single-parent families in the area, for whom organising runs to multiple schools in different areas is extremely difficult, he says.

One local mother has just accepted a place for her child in a special school all the way in Dún Laoghaire, says Dowling.

Any school or schools built in the area must include special classes and supporting infrastructure, he says.

At the moment, kids from Meakstown will often end up in a lottery for small numbers of remaining school places in other areas that are stretched themselves, says Dowling. “It’s getting crazy.”

The Dubber electoral district, which covers much of Meakstown, has grown from about 6,500 people in 2011 to about 9,000 in 2022, according to Fingal County Council's recent Meakstown Needs Analysis.

Close to 19 percent – or one in five – families in the Meakstown area have a pre-adolescent child or children, it says. That’s 7 percent higher than the national average.

“This indicates that, over the next five years, there will be a very considerable demand for places in second-level schools, along with a need for facilities, amenities and outlets for teenagers,” it says.

But a spokesperson for the Department of Education pointed to the direction of travel for the 10 primary schools in the broader Finglas East-Ballymun D11 school planning area.

"Enrolments in these schools are declining – there was 14% fewer Junior Infants enrolled than 6^th class pupils in 2025," they said.

Building a community

There has long been an effort to build an identity for this part of Dublin.

A couple of years ago, a volunteer at the local Tidy Towns, Yvonne Gregg, was pushing for Fingal County Council to install a public sculpture in the area to help.

Because, “When you say ‘Meakstown’, a lot of people ask, ‘Where’s that?’” Gregg said at the time.

Not having a school makes it harder to build a community identity, campaigners say.

“Apart from obviously not being able to access education, it's very difficult to build a community when there's no school,” says campaign member Val Farrell.

The area lacks cohesion, she says.

Kids should know each other better, says Farrell, but as they all leave the neighbourhood for schools, that isn’t happening.

“It's one of the most basic needs that a community should be met with before building more and more blocks of apartments,” she says.

Nearby at Pipers Square opposite Charlestown Shopping Centre, new blocks hold 598 apartments.

Farrell, a full-time youth worker, says there is already a constant battle for services in the area. “We’re not in Ballymun, we’re not in Finglas, we’re not prioritised anywhere."

“Nobody takes priority being from this area for any school list, for a GP place, for anything really," says Farrell. "We’re not being given the services, and a school is the groundwork for that – everything stems out from the school.”

Meakstown are also totally underserved by youth and after-school services, she says.

Fingal, as a whole, is the most rapidly growing area in the country, says Rob O’Donoghue, Labour Party TD for Dublin Fingal West. “And the youngest as well.”

The area is chronically short on new school builds, he said by phone on Tuesday.

“The capital spending for schools all over Fingal, including Meakstown, needs to be seriously looked at given the demographics of the constituency,” he says.

Finding a site for a school

Dowling says that before the development at Pipers Square was given the go-ahead, local representatives should have pushed for a school to be included in the plans.

“There's enough land at the back of those four blocks up there, you could put a school in no problem,” he says.

Another opportunity for a site for a school is in the area Jamestown Business Park.

Just south of Meakstown, Dublin City Council has rezoned and masterplanned this 43 hectares of industrial estate.

Lands “will be developed at an approximate ratio of 65 percent residential and 25 percent employment/commercial, complemented with community, education and ancillary uses”, the masterplan says.

“A new primary school is to be provided,” it says. Its final form is flexible, to be determined in consultation with the Department of Education, the masterplan says.

If the department thinks its needed, land could also be set aside for a second primary or secondary school in the second phase of development of these lands, it says.

But a site on a map for a potential school in the future is not the reassurance that the Meakstown School Campaign is after, says campaign member John Keogh.

"That remains aspirational,” he said. “That probably won't be built in my kids' school years."

In April, Jen Cummins, Social Democrats TD for Dublin South Central, asked the Minister for Education about a school for Meakstown.

The Minister, Hildegarde Naughton, of Fine Gael, said requirements for school places are kept under review.

If demographic data shows a need for more provision, the department provides that in different ways, Naughton said. "Utilising existing unused capacity within a school or schools; Extending the capacity of a school or schools; Provision of a new school or schools,” she said.

Expanding existing schools is consistent with the government’s Project Ireland 2040 aims “for an increased emphasis on compact growth”, she said.

“New schools are only established in areas of demographic growth as the resources available for school infrastructure must be prioritised to meet the needs of areas of significant population increase to ensure that every child has a school place,” she said.

A Department of Education spokesperson said the department "is liaising with Fingal County Council to monitor the rate and pace of residential developments in the Meakstown/Jamestown areas".

"This will inform the timing of additional school capacity when required to meet the needs of that area," they said.

Keogh, of the Meakstown School Campaign, said half the area’s population are under 35 years. “So, lots of young babies, lots of more babies to be had, but no school.”

Finglas was the same 50 or 60 years ago, says Keogh. “The people are there, the accommodation’s provided, but the facilities are not.”

Funded by the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme.