Several urban areas in South Dublin County are also traditionally suburbs of Dublin city. For the purposes of planning and management, the County Council designates the status of towns, villages and suburbs in three tiers - town, district centre and local centre. In the current development plan, the towns and district centres are listed as:
Tallaght, the county seat and the location of The Square Shopping Centre which was opened in October 1990
Clondalkin
Lucan
and with a proposal to develop a Town Centre around the Liffey Valley Centre at Quarryvale
while the more local centres are noted in three groups:
new neighbourhoods, some within bigger, older areas - including such as Kilnamanagh, Ballyowen, Finnstown, and, in development, Adamstown.
Residential areas
Adamstown
Ballyboden
Ballyroan
Clondalkin
Edmondstown
Firhouse
Greenhills
Jobstown
Knocklyon
Lucan
Newcastle
Palmerstown
Rathcoole
Rathfarnham
Rockbrook
Ronanstown
Saggart
Tallaght
Templeogue
Walkinstown
Legal status and terminology
In Ireland, the usage of the wordcounty nearly always comes before rather than after the county name; thus "County Clare" in Ireland as opposed to "Clare County" in Michigan, USA. In the case of those counties created after 1994, they often drop the word county entirely, or use it after the name; thus for example internet search engines show many more uses of "South Dublin" than of either "County South Dublin" or "South Dublin County". There appears to be no official guidance in the matter, as even the local authority uses all three forms. In 2015, South Dublin became part of the Eastern and Midland Region. Local government in the region is further regulated by the Local Government Act 1994. This provided for the legal establishment of the following local government administrative areas:
and also recognised the extant Dublin Corporation area, vesting its powers in a renamed entity - Dublin City Council. The statutory instrument giving effect to the Act came into force on 1 January 1994. The instrument also provided for the abolition of Dublin County Council - the entity that had previously had responsibility for Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown, Fingal and South Dublin. The four entities collectively comprise the former entity known as County Dublin. This entity, which had been created during the Norman invasion of Ireland, was abolished under the Acts. South Dublin was based on an existing electoral division, Belgard An Bealach Ard, whose boundaries were only finalised in 1993, to accommodate the M50 motorway, and then used when it was made an Administrative County in 1994. The name of Belgard did have a historical association with the area, being the designation of one of the border fortresses of the Pale that existed in that area. It was altered, however, due to a view that the name Belgard might create associations with areas of modern development in Tallaght that now also use that name. Various organs of state use alternative subdivisions of the Dublin region for administrative reasons, for example the Dublin postal codes.
Local government and politics
South Dublin County Council is the local authority for the county. It was established at County Hall at the same time that Dublin County Council and the Corporation of Dún Laoghaire were abolished in 1994, by an Act of the Oireachtas, the Local Government Act 1993. It is one of four councils in the Dublin Region. The county is divided into five local electoral areas for the purpose of elections: Clondalkin, Lucan, Rathfarnham, Tallaght Central, and Tallaght South. Parts of four constituencies for elections to Dáil Éireann are contained within the county's borders. They are: Dublin Mid-West, Dublin South-West, Dublin South and Dublin South-Central. From 1885 to 1922, much of the area of the present county was encompassed by the historic Westminster constituency of South County Dublin.
Demographics
Symbols
The heraldic crest for South Dublin has the inscription "This We Hold In Trust" in both English and Irish, while incorporating elements relating to the history, geography and present day infrastructure of the area.
