Population Centres

[A face]

Where are the big population centres up north? Towns big than say 40-50,000 and hoe many teams are in those towns?

I just thinking if there are two many clubs up there for the population, i not suggesting anything radical or anything but its worth looking at just to know.

[Speranza]

2001 census results (http://www.nicensus2001.gov.uk/nica/analyser/analyser?topicId=1&tableId=&tableName=Total+Population&selectedTopicId=&aggregated=false&subject=&tableNumber=&selectedLevelId=&postcode=&areaText=&RADIOLAYER=&actionName=view-results&clearAreas=&stateData1=&stateData2=&stateData3=&stateData4=&debug=&tempData1=&tempData2=&tempData3=&tempData4=&areaId=95AA&areaId=95BB&areaId=95CC&areaId=95DD&areaId=95EE&areaId=95FF&areaId=95GG&areaId=95HH&areaId=95II&areaId=95JJ&areaId=95KK&areaId=95LL&areaId=95MM&areaId=95NN&areaId=95OO&areaId=95PP&areaId=95QQ&areaId=95RR&areaId=95SS&areaId=95TT&areaId=95UU&areaId=95VV&areaId=95WW&areaId=95XX&areaId=95YY&areaId=95ZZ&levelId=1)

There you go Face, some interesting figures. Attendances should really be higher in places like Coleraine e.t.c.

[REVIP]

Breakdown of population stats here:

http://www.world-gazetteer.com/wg.php?x=&men=gcis&lng=en&dat=32&geo=-81&srt=npan&col=aohdq&geo=-1496

Craigavon, which includes Portadown and Lurgan, and has a population of 59,000 has Portadown and Glenavon football clubs.

Bangor, with a population of 60,000, has . . . Bangor.

It's not just about population

[SwiftsSupporter]

The problem about Bangor is there are to many people who wouldn't dare go to a football match if you know what I mean

[glentoranfan]

There's that yes, but also, Bangor is full of people who moved from Belfast when the troubles broke out, so many living there are mainly Bluemen or to a slightly lesser, but none the less significant degree, Glenmen.

[anto eile]

the population of Derry and Lidburn among a couple of others have/are rising dramatically.
newry city .. and its population is under 30,000. "city" how exactly?

[Dassa]

the problem again is that Many boroughs have teams that have been around for years. Take Armagh Borough. Within this there is my club and Armagh City and some that support the Ports, Glenavon, Dungannon and Newry. The teams are there now and no-one is going to swap allegiance to one of the others so of course fan basis is small. Compare this to the like of Derry City who have only 2 senior teams to support or Cork for example.

[Speranza]

Newry was granted City status at the milennium. Was a bidding process from a load of towns of similar size. The Queen decided AFAIK.

[A face]

the problem again is that Many boroughs have teams that have been around for years. Take Armagh Borough. Within this there is my club and Armagh City and some that support the Ports, Glenavon, Dungannon and Newry. The teams are there now and no-one is going to swap allegiance to one of the others so of course fan basis is small. Compare this to the like of Derry City who have only 2 senior teams to support or Cork for example.


Is there ever talk of some clubs merging ?? To be honest, it seems like the logical thing to do.

[dcfcsteve]

Newry was granted City status at the milennium. Was a bidding process from a load of towns of similar size. The Queen decided AFAIK.

The Queen created 5 new cities to mark the millenium. The plan was to have 1 in each of the 4 'home nations'. The 3 cities created in Britain were : Swansea (Wales), Sunderland (England) and Inverness (Scotland). The obvious candidate for City status in NI was Newry (Armagh being the previous obvious one to be grantec status). However - Britain being Britain, they decided they couldn't risk offending either community with their choice of city status - so they hatched the rather daft idea of creating TWO new cities : Lisburn and Newry. One perceived as a nationalist area, the other perceived as protestant. As a result Northern Ireland, with a population of only c. 1.5m people, now officially has 5 cities, 4 of which are in the east of the province. Daftness.

REVIP - Criagavon doesn't really exist. If anything, it's merely a superb of Lurgan. It was a Stormont-induced scheme to join Portadown and Lurgan together and create a protestant-majority second city for Northern Ireland in-place of Derry. Thankfully it never really got off the ground. Portadown and Lurgan are still two separate towns. Craigavon is just a weird 1960's-style suburb in-between, and a name sometimes misleading used on 'official' documents.

[Dassa]

so true about craigavon not existng, most people were happy about keeping the individual towns as far as I can tell. As for merged teams cant see it happening most small villages or towns ie 500-10,000 have their own identity and team its there, so this ideology will not disappear easily including teams like my own team which has a populations of 400 people yet we have an average of 300, This shows the interest in the area for football and that particular team , would it be right to take senior football away from us just cause we are small?

[David]

Is there ever talk of some clubs merging ?? To be honest, it seems like the logical thing to do.

Not if you are a supporter of such a club it isn't.

[REVIP]

REVIP - Criagavon doesn't really exist. If anything, it's merely a superb of Lurgan. It was a Stormont-induced scheme to join Portadown and Lurgan together and create a protestant-majority second city for Northern Ireland in-place of Derry. Thankfully it never really got off the ground. Portadown and Lurgan are still two separate towns. Craigavon is just a weird 1960's-style suburb in-between, and a name sometimes misleading used on 'official' documents.

Yeah. I know. I lived in the 'borough' from '83 to '86 - moved there from England - it was very weird in those days - first time I got off a train in the North was at Portadown in '81 - it had signs up saying 'Craigavon West' - there were whole estates completely empty.

Point I was trying to make was that there was no necessary correlation between population and a succesful football club.

My home team in England is Yeovil Town - admittedly not having a great season this season - but the town is maybe as small as one tenth of the size of some of the towns they are playing against

[Lux Interior]

The Queen created 5 new cities to mark the millenium. The plan was to have 1 in each of the 4 'home nations'. The 3 cities created in Britain were : Swansea (Wales), Sunderland (England) and Inverness (Scotland). The obvious candidate for City status in NI was Newry (Armagh being the previous obvious one to be grantec status). However - Britain being Britain, they decided they couldn't risk offending either community with their choice of city status - so they hatched the rather daft idea of creating TWO new cities : Lisburn and Newry. One perceived as a nationalist area, the other perceived as protestant. As a result Northern Ireland, with a population of only c. 1.5m people, now officially has 5 cities, 4 of which are in the east of the province. Daftness.


Sunderland received city status in 1992 as part of the Queen's 40th anniversary as monarch.

Newry was not the "obvious choice" - in fact it was well down the running behind Lisburn, Ballymena and Coleraine (there was one other - the name escapes me).

They both received city status for the reasons you correctly outlined.

[Lux Interior]

Is there ever talk of some clubs merging ?? To be honest, it seems like the logical thing to do.

Franchise football may be alive and well in the EL (Drumcondra .... Dublin City). I hope I never see a similar situation arising in the IL.

[A face]

Franchise football may be alive and well in the EL (Drumcondra .... Dublin City). I hope I never see a similar situation arising in the IL.

But sometimes it would make sense though, obviously i know that fans would freak out at it but if two clubs had no fans, little resources, not enough people on the ground to keep it going and two run down grounds both within five miles of each other ..... that to me makes complete sense to merge.

[Plastic Paddy]

The Queen created 5 new cities to mark the millenium. The plan was to have 1 in each of the 4 'home nations'. The 3 cities created in Britain were : Swansea (Wales), Sunderland (England) and Inverness (Scotland). The obvious candidate for City status in NI was Newry (Armagh being the previous obvious one to be grantec status). However - Britain being Britain, they decided they couldn't risk offending either community with their choice of city status - so they hatched the rather daft idea of creating TWO new cities : Lisburn and Newry. One perceived as a nationalist area, the other perceived as protestant. As a result Northern Ireland, with a population of only c. 1.5m people, now officially has 5 cities, 4 of which are in the east of the province. Daftness.

Sorry Steve (and at a tangent) but you're slightly out there. Herself only created three new cities to mark the millennium - Brighton & Hove, Wolverhampton and Inverness. Swansea had been a city since its incorporation as such in 1969 (in celebration of the investiture of Charlie as Prince of Wales). Newport was the Welsh town granted city status by Brenda to mark her golden jubilee in 2002 along with Newry and Lisburn from NI, Stirling in Scotland and Preston in Ingerlund. Still, I bet none of their local authorities lent the Labour Party any money to fight the last election (cash for city status, anyone?) But I digress...

:ball: PP

[dcfcsteve]

Sorry Steve (and at a tangent) but you're slightly out there. Herself only created three new cities to mark the millennium - Brighton & Hove, Wolverhampton and Inverness. Swansea had been a city since its incorporation as such in 1969 (in celebration of the investiture of Charlie as Prince of Wales). Newport was the Welsh town granted city status by Brenda to mark her golden jubilee in 2002 along with Newry and Lisburn from NI, Stirling in Scotland and Preston in Ingerlund. Still, I bet none of their local authorities lent the Labour Party any money to fight the last election (cash for city status, anyone?) But I digress...

:ball: PP

My bad on the cities PP - that'll teach me not to post at 2am after a night on the town.... :D

[dcfcsteve]

Point I was trying to make was that there was no necessary correlation between population and a succesful football club.

My home team in England is Yeovil Town - admittedly not having a great season this season - but the town is maybe as small as one tenth of the size of some of the towns they are playing against

There is academic evidence to suggest the opposite REVIP.

A footballing academic (who's name escapes me, but he was covered in one of the Footie lectures I go to at University of London) did a comprehensive study of footballing success in England since the beginning of the football league.

He found that, by and large, the more successful a club was, the larger the population centre it tended to come from. Looking at the all-time most successful clubs in England, this makes sense. The only small conurbation to win the English Premiership is Blackburn (pop c 140,000 - roughly size of Cork city). Only two teams from smaller population centres have ever won the English First Division - Burnley and Ipswich - and neither of those have been since 1962. Conversely - 82% of all English Champions have been teams from 7 of the 8 key cities in the country (London, Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, Liverpool, Newcastle, Sheffield and Bristol) - and as you can see form that list, we're only really talking about 4 cities of footballing note. Also - the vast majority of the reamaining 18% of English champions won their titles in the pre-War era.

The academic also found that, whilst there were the occassional exceptions that bucked the rule at any point in time - e.g. Sunderland, Huddersfield, Preston, Ipswich, Derby, Wimbledon, and more recently Leicester and Wigan - when looked at over the long-term such 'successful' stints proved to be merely a flash in the pan before those clubs returned to their 'true station' in the pecking order based upon population centres.

So there is imperical and academic evidence (in England at least) to assert strongly that success is correlated to the size of a team's population centre. Anecdotally, this would broadly be true for mt otehr countris n Europe - such as Spain, Italy, France, Germany, Portugal, Scotland, Holland etc. In an increasingly money-dominated game it makes total sense that the larger a teams potential fanbase is, the greater its potential to generate revenue, and therefore the more successful it is likely to be.

[sonofstan]

82% of all English Champions have been teams from 7 of the 8 key cities in the country (London, Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, Liverpool, Newcastle, Sheffield and Bristol) - and as you can see form that list, we're only really talking about 4 cities of footballing note..

who are you trying to upset with that? of that list, I would have thought Bristol was the only one not of 'footballing note'.

[Dassa]

But sometimes it would make sense though, obviously i know that fans would freak out at it but if two clubs had no fans, little resources, not enough people on the ground to keep it going and two run down grounds both within five miles of each other ..... that to me makes complete sense to merge.

My club and the nearest one to that Armagh City have only about an average attendance of 300 or so each. But if we were to join together I would just stop supporting local football. Even if the new franchise club were more successful it would mean so little to me. Fans of clubs even those close to each other have their own identity lets hope it stays that way.

[dcfcsteve]

who are you trying to upset with that? of that list, I would have thought Bristol was the only one not of 'footballing note'.

No Bristol club has ever won the English Championship.

Newcastle have won it 4 times (less than Sunderland, for example) - but the last was way back in 1927.

5 titles have been shared between the 2 Sheffield clubs - the last being 1930.

Leeds have only been champions 3 times in their 102 years of trying.

I'd therefore suggest that, for cities of their size, that was a fairly poor trophy haul.

[sonofstan]

No Bristol club has ever won the English Championship.

Newcastle have won it 4 times (less than Sunderland, for example) - but the last was way back in 1927.

5 titles have been shared between the 2 Sheffield clubs - the last being 1930.

Leeds have only been champions 3 times in their 102 years of trying.

I'd therefore suggest that, for cities of their size, that was a fairly poor trophy haul.

hardly makes them 'not footballing cities of note' though, does it? - still, i see your point

[dcfcsteve]

hardly makes them 'not footballing cities of note' though, does it? - still, i see your point

Fair point. I was trying to show that even within the 8 key cities in England, only 4 of those population centres have spawned contenders at the game's top level beyond the short term. If a big city like Bristol (pop. c 400,000) can't produce a successful football team in over 100 years, then what hope do the Exeter's, Carlisle's, York's and Brighton's of the world have...?

If we look at Ireland - north and south - it's our areas of largest population that have spawned our most successful clubs - Dublin, Belfast, Cork, Waterford, Derry. no matter what angle you look at it, success )not to mention survival) within football appears to be linked to the size of population centre a team comes from. And increasingly so.

[hamish]

Funny too, how an influx of wealth can indirectly effect an area's sport. Remember when the off-shore gas/oil boom effected the Eastern side of Scotland? Aberdeen had a good spell and Dundee United also did reasonably well if not setting Scottish footie on fire.
I remember talking with Maurice Malpas in 1992 (he was with Dundee United then) and he said that they were taking top class young lads even from Glasgow from under the noses of the old firm because they had greater funding to spend on scouting, coaching etc as a result of the gas wealth (for want of a better term) seeping into the area via new, wealthy directors/sponsors etc who have become rich from the service industries associated with the North Sea boom.
Sadly, there were/are too many senior clubs in the East part of Scotland despite relatively biggish population centres so I suppose it was inevitable that only a few clubs benefitted even if only for a while.
For example, wasn't Aberdeen the first UK club to have an all-seater stadium?

Didn't last too long though and things soon returned to Celtic, Rangers and....... the rest. The influx of foreign players after Bosman also changed things back in favour of the Glasgow big two.

Seems too that Scotland didn't benefit overall - as much as it should have - from North Sea oil and gas but that's another story.

[sonofstan]

If we look at Ireland - north and south - it's our areas of largest population that have spawned our most successful clubs - Dublin, Belfast, Cork, Waterford, Derry. no matter what angle you look at it, success )not to mention survival) within football appears to be linked to the size of population centre a team comes from. And increasingly so.
I'm not arguing with your basic point - the link between footballing success and population - but other factors do come into play; For example, Dundalk and Drogheda are pretty much of a size, but historically, Dundalk are way more successful; I think you'd have to look at patterns of employment and so on to start explaining thinks like that. Similarly, cultural issues come into play as well; look at Galway - a much bigger town than either Sligo or Athlone, but not by any stretch a football town.

[dcfcsteve]

I'm not arguing with your basic point - the link between footballing success and population - but other factors do come into play; For example, Dundalk and Drogheda are pretty much of a size, but historically, Dundalk are way more successful; I think you'd have to look at patterns of employment and so on to start explaining thinks like that. Similarly, cultural issues come into play as well; look at Galway - a much bigger town than either Sligo or Athlone, but not by any stretch a football town.

We're both in agreement here Sonof. The key is to look at success over the longest possible term. Dundalk have been relatively successful - particularly with a good spell in the 1980's - but you could argue that they've gone back to a more appropriate level of success, given their population, since. Likewise - Drogheda's success is only current - will they still be regular contenders for the key silverware in 10 years time ? Only time will tell (though personally I suspect not). Longford had a good couple of years, but have slipped back to being a mid-table club now. Given the size of the town and county, and thereby the potential crowds they can generate, that's no great surprise.

Galway may be bigger than Sligo or Athlone, but none of those 3 towns have done particularly well in Irish football to be honest. Limerick is an even stronger example - one of the bigest cities on the Ireland, yet a woeful history of success.

There will always be exceptions either way - particularly when looking at events in the short or medium term. But I think we're both agreed that the principle of population/potential fanbase and success overlapping still holds.

[Dassa]

Portadown would hardly be a very large place 22000 but have had alot of success. I think its alot to do with money invested in club by people connected with it.

[Krstic]

Portadown would hardly be a very large place 22000 but have had alot of success. I think its alot to do with money invested in club by people connected with it.

They've won 4 League titles and 3 Irish cups, and all in the last 16 years.
Alot to do with investment i would think.

[dcfcsteve]

Portadown would hardly be a very large place 22000 but have had alot of success. I think its alot to do with money invested in club by people connected with it.

Investment obviously has an impact on teams - particularly in 'weak' leagues like the 2 Irish ones. But is Portadown's relative success as much to do with the fact that since Derry City left the IL in 1972, there simply haven't been any teams form large population centres in the league apart from Belfast ?

Portadown isn't a big place - but where else is in the league ? Bangor has a decent population by Norn Irish stands now - close to 60,000 - but it was c. 45,000 in the 80's, and significantly lower in the 70's before the influx of Belfast people began. Also - due to this influx, a lot of the people in Bangor who follow local football would have loyalties to a Belfast team. This takes literally generations to alter.

Lisburn also has a big population - but cuckoo-club Distillery have only been there for a few years now and have no roots in the place, so the size of that town is irrelevant.

Every other team in the Irish League is from a small town or small city. Therefore - Portadown may seem a great success given their size. But their not significantly smaller than any other team outside of Belfast, so when looked at that way it's no great shakes.

I also note that Portadown's success ALL happened in the years after Derry left the league - i.e. when the biggest poulation centre outside of Belfast was no longer represented. I'm sure this is no coincidence.

[Krstic]

In saying that steve, Derry City didn't exactly set the irish League alight ( A certain bus YES) but we were no super power.

[dcfcsteve]

In saying that steve, Derry City didn't exactly set the irish League alight ( A certain bus YES) but we were no super power.

Very true. Though that doesn't mean we weren't one of the better non-Belfast teams.

In it's 105 year history, the Irish League has been won a whopping 95 times by a Belfast club. It wasn't until 1952 that the trophy even left Belfast for the first time (Glenavon).

With the possible exception of Glenavon, Derry were arguably the most successful of the non-Belfast clubs during our time in the Irish League - as measured by trophies and league positon.

[Dassa]

With the possible exception of Glenavon, Derry were arguably the most successful of the non-Belfast clubs during our time in the Irish League - as measured by trophies and league positon.

You mention Glenavon (Lurgan) there a place much smaller than Derry who have had success. I think investment is a huge influence. The leagues can be bought but I do see your point mate about size of places having a huge effect.

[Thunderblaster]

In recent times, you had the FAI Senior Cup going to Longford Town (pop 7,000) and the FAI Junior Cup going to Westport United (pop 5,000). Hardly big towns and would compare to villages in Northern Ireland and both teams defeated city sides to win their competitions. Fanad United won the FAI Intermediate Cup a number of years ago and the population base is even smaller.

[Gerrit]

Apart from Derry and Belfast I would take the term 'city' with a smile here. Maybe Coleraine as well, not sure of the population statistics there.

However, big population doesn't equal big teams. Otherwise we'd have Limerick and Galway in the premier without any trace of Bray, Finn Harps and Longford...

Look abroad as well: Leeds, Nottingham, Bristol, ... all big population centres, but their clubs are out of the big leagues since quite a while now (OK, they once have been in the premier division, but that's a different thing). More examples would include Venice, Napoli, Trieste, Izmir, Bursa, Archangelsk, Lvov, ...

whereas at the same time rather small places like Villarreal, Gueugnon, Guingamp, Wolfsburg, Chievo, ... have been surviving on top level and are quite stable.

[dcfcsteve]

Apart from Derry and Belfast I would take the term 'city' with a smile here. Maybe Coleraine as well, not sure of the population statistics there.

However, big population doesn't equal big teams. Otherwise we'd have Limerick and Galway in the premier without any trace of Bray, Finn Harps and Longford...

Look abroad as well: Leeds, Nottingham, Bristol, ... all big population centres, but their clubs are out of the big leagues since quite a while now (OK, they once have been in the premier division, but that's a different thing). More examples would include Venice, Napoli, Trieste, Izmir, Bursa, Archangelsk, Lvov, ...

whereas at the same time rather small places like Villarreal, Gueugnon, Guingamp, Wolfsburg, Chievo, ... have been surviving on top level and are quite stable.

There will always be exceptions - particuarrly when looking at only a single small period of time.

But when you look at the most successful teams in the vast majority of leagues, they tend to be from the biggest cities. Yes - there are plenty of big cities who's teams are crap. Likewise, there are small areas that have periods of success. But name me one small population centre that has had a team that is continuuosly a power-house in their domestic league, over the medium-to-long term ? I don't doubt they exist - but I'd bet that in the very few cases they do it's because they're in 'weak' leagues where crowds are relatively low for all clubs, and money can make a huge difference.

Academic, statistical and anecodtal evidence all points very strongly towards the conclusion that the bigger a team's population centre, the higher its chances of footballing success will generally be. Particularly beyond the medium term.

[Raheny Red]

I heard this fact quite some time ago but in Turkey no club from the capital city, Ankara, have won the league in the last few decades! :confused:

[dcfcsteve]

I heard this fact quite some time ago but in Turkey no club from the capital city, Ankara, have won the league in the last few decades! :confused:

It's not that surprising really. No club from the Dutch capital - The Hague - has won the Dutch league since 1943 ! No team from the Scottish capital - Edinburgh - has won the SPL for years either ! There are a number of countries - incl Turkey, Scotland, Holland, Brazil - where the capital city is NOT the biggest city. Hence the Scottish champions tend to be from Glasgow - by far the biggest city in Scotland. Likewise with Istanbul - the largest population centre in Turkey.

The champions of Turkey last season were from Istanbul. Of the teams who finished in the top 5, 3 were from Istanbul and one from Ankara - both large population centres. It's not surprising to find that Ankara teams aren't as successful as teams from the much larger Istanbul.

Meanwhile, there are plenty of countries where the majority of league titles HAVE been won by teams from the capital city - particularly where that capital is also the largest city.

[sonofstan]

Academic, statistical and anecodtal evidence all points very strongly towards the conclusion that the bigger a team's population centre, the higher its chances of footballing success will generally be. Particularly beyond the medium term.
I pretty much agree with that; despite all the Rosenbergs and Deportivos small town teams generally eventually fall back into the middle ranks; where I think we might have disagreed is the idea that 'footballing success' is correlative with somewhere being - and this is hardly a quantifiable notion - 'a footballing town' . Thus, Newcastle, Sheffield and Nottingham despite their relative lack of success (ever in Newcastle's case, recently in the Sheffield teams' and Forest's case) are footballing towns, in that - a) the teams get large crowds even through periods outside the top flight and b) football is the leading sport in the town. For this reason Wigan, Hull and maybe even Leeds will never be footballing towns.
In Irish terms, Sligo, Dundalk and Athlone remain such towns; Galway, Dun Laoghaire and the new towns of Swords/ Naas/ Navan probably never will be - and this probably goes for Bangor as well.

[Schumi]

the Dutch capital - The Hague.
Amsterdam is the Dutch capital.

[dcfcsteve]

Amsterdam is the Dutch capital.

Constitutionally yes - but it is not the administrative capital of Holland, which is what usually accounts for a capital city. It's just the Dutch being wierd again. :)

We could have Ballhaunis as our state capital in the constituion, and yes - it would therefore technically be the capital. But with Dublin as the administrative capital, no-one would give a feck for what the constitution said.

[hamish]

Athlone is growing like crazy - brother in law told me that there's about400,000 within an hours drive of the town and maybe there's potenial for a really big club in LOI eventually. It'll probably get city status in the future but I'd hate if they changed the name to Athlone City FC.:eek: :D

[dcfcsteve]

Athlone is growing like crazy - brother in law told me that there's about400,000 within an hours drive of the town and maybe there's potenial for a really big club in LOI eventually. It'll probably get city status in the future but I'd hate if they changed the name to Athlone City FC.:eek: :D

It's teed-up for city status as a regional centre in the spatial plan - along with Sligo.

I think Letterkenny is highlighted as a regional centre as well (though not a future city) - which is a bad daft in an all-Ireland context, given that the 4th largest city on the island is on it's doorstep.

And I still think Finn Harps are daft not to move to Leitir Ceannainn

[hamish]

It's teed-up for city status as a regional centre in the spatial plan - along with Sligo.



That's right - Beeslow is really a dormitory town for it now.:(

[dcfcsteve]

That's right - Beeslow is really a dormitory town for it now.:(

Which direction is it primarily growing-in though ? Is it becomning more Roscommon & Connacht-ish, or Westmeath and dirty Leinster-ish....? :D

I'd guess more to the east - i.e. towards Dublin. :(

[hamish]

Which direction is it primarily growing-in though ? Is it becomning more Roscommon & Connacht-ish, or Westmeath and dirty Leinster-ish....? :D

I'd guess more to the east - i.e. towards Dublin. :(

It's growing in every direction Steve - massive new housing estates in the Roscommon side (Bealnamulla area f.e.) though but I think every other scrap of land in the area is being gobbled up for housing - Athlone lads would have a clearer idea.