This article is part of Ireland’s Changing Suburbs, an Irish Times series exploring our fast-growing new towns, changing older neighbourhoods, and shrinking rural landscapes. See also: Fintan O’Toole on ‘the commodification of Crumlin’

“Glanmire was a rural village when we moved here in 1991,” says Liam Murphy, co-owner of The Brook Inn in Glanmire. “For us it was very affordable. We paid £57,500 for a four-bedroom detached house. Back then, it was very parochial, very small. Everyone knew everyone else. Barry’s Shop was a grocery that sold everything, with a butcher’s beside it, and the post office was a couple of doors down. When we arrived, it really started mushrooming out, with new estates being built.”

Glanmire is the townland umbrella name for a cluster of tiny settlements not far from what passing commuters know as the Dunkettle Interchange, some 6km from Cork City. There’s Glanmire itself, Riverstown, Sallybrook, and Brooklodge. Collectively, they are known as “Glanmire”. In 2019, local government boundaries in Cork were amended to facilitate the city’s growth. Glanmire’s local authority changed from Cork County Council to Cork City Council. This amendment in effect meant that Glanmire now became a suburb of Cork City.

But what does living in Glanmire feel like to those who settled there in the days when it was in fac