Naas
|
|
Naas (pronounced ; Irish: Nás na Riogh or An Nás ) is the county town of County Kildare, Ireland. It is a major commuter belt town, with many people living in Naas and working in Dublin. The nearby M7 motorway, which bypasses Naas and connects Dublin to the South and Southwest, is one of the busiest routes in the country.
Naas town ('Nás na Riogh') as it was called in Irish is the "Meeting Place of Kings" because of its ancient location as a cross-roads to and from Dublin, and its traditional location as the principal governmental administrative centre in the county. Naas is located 20 miles south of Ireland's capital, and it is growing remarkably. The population of 14,000 is younger on average than other Irish towns (33% are between 24-44, and only 7% are over 64). The town's 4,000 new arrivals in the last five years are Ireland's Young Europeans: well educated and upwardly mobile home buyers, who share a technical culture as local hi-tech employees of Intel, Hewlett Packard, Donnelly Mirrors, and many others. The town is planning new housing estates in the next five years for a larger capacity of 22,000.
One of the first battles of the rebellion of 1798 took place in Naas on 24th May 1798 when a force of about 1,000 rebels was defeated in an unsuccessful attack on the town. During World War II, Naas was the site of Ireland's prisoner of war (P.O.W.) camp (the Curragh prisoner of war camp). Because Ireland was officially neutral during that war, Ireland was obligated to imprison military personnel from any belligerant who ended up in Irish territory; as a result, the P.O.W. camp in Naas housed United States of America, United Kingdom, and German soldiers all together in the same camp. (A motion picture, The Brylcreem Boys, was produced in the 1990s which depicted life at the Irish P.O.W. camp.)