St Fintans Sutton

[sue97]

Anyone live here, main questions

1. Trafficjams into Sutton at Rush Hour
2. Any young children
3. Transport

Thanks

 

[binman]

I grew up in St Fintan's, and my parents still live there. It was a very nice place to grow up. With the sea on your doorstep and the hill just up the road there were plenty of amenities to keep us kids amused.

There are plenty of sports clubs (golf, sailing, tennis, rugby etc.) in the area. The nearest shops are at Sutton Cross, the local newsagent having shut up shop a long time ago.

While there were a lot of kids around 15 to 20 years ago or more, I see very few these days on my occasional visits. House prices which are out of reach to most young families has seen to that.

Some of the local bus services have been downgraded in recent years, due to lack of demand I imagine. The 31A route used to travel right through St Fintan's 4 or 5 times a day, but it has been withdrawn completely now. The 31B and 31C routes serve Carrickbrack Road, which is about a 10 minute walk, while Sutton Cross and the Dart station are about a mile away.

I don't know what the traffic situation is like at Sutton Cross these days, but it wasn't too bad many moons ago. The main roads to the city centre all lead into Fairview and North Strand though, which seem to be pretty bad in the mornings. Parking used to be a problem at the Dart station, but again I don't know what the situation is like now.

All in all, a great place to bring up children if you can afford it.

 

[mefifi]

i grew up there as well and to be honest never liked it much from a people point of view. the sea / red rock area is great, traffic is appalling and constantly getting worse. bear in mind the DART is a 15 min (fast) walk along by a fairly windy seafront, and you need to know the bus timetable, you can't just wait at a stop. i visit my parents 2 or 3 times a month there - in summer if anything is on in howth then traffic gets pretty bad. no bus lanes along howth road mean if you are on the 31b you'll be sitting in traffic, there's no advantage over your own car if you have one.

i did 6 years in santa sabina secondary school (did the leaving in 1995) and i believe it gave me a great start - no idea what it's like these days. not sure if the apartment planning permission between santa sabina and the church was granted - if that goes ahead i dread to think about traffic. usually takes about 10 mins one way to drive to DART station from st fintans.