Swords, County Fingal, The Province of Leinster, Ireland

Economy : Retail | Transport : Air | Logistics | Pharmaceutical | Food and horticulture

🇮🇪 Swords is a large suburban town on the east coast of Ireland, situated ten km north of Dublin city centre. It is the county town of Fingal. The town was reputedly founded around 560 AD. Located on the Ward River, Swords features a restored medieval castle, a holy well from which it takes its name, a round tower and a Norman tower. Near Dublin Airport, the town's facilities include the Pavilions shopping centre, one of the largest in the Dublin region, a range of civic offices and industries, and several parks. Households in Swords have the seventh-highest median incomes in the state.

Economy: Retail Swords is the home to a large retail and business park called Airside Retail and Business Park, on the southern fringe of the town, hosting many employers, including the European Headquarters of Kellogg's. Ingersoll Rand also has its corporate headquarters in the Airside Business Park. East of the town, running parallel to Swords bypass, lies the large Swords Business Park, where The Hertz Corporation have a Shared Services Centre.

Swords also has a large shopping centre, the Pavilions Swords, off the R132, which has a multi-screen cinema and branches of SuperValu and Dunnes Stores.

Transport: Air Swords is the closest town to Dublin Airport and the airport has provided a lot of employment to the area. In 2011 the airport handled over 18.7 million passengers and served over 171 routes with 62 airlines. The airport serves as an operating base for Aer Lingus, Aer Lingus Regional, Air Contractors, CityJet, Ryanair and Thomson Airways, and as a maintenance base for Aer Lingus, CityJet, Dublin Aerospace, Eirtech Aviation, Etihad Airways and Ryanair.

The Irish Aviation Authority operate the Dublin Air Traffic Control Centre on the airport.

The headquarters of the Dublin Airport Authority and Ireland's four largest airlines are located in or near Swords. The Dublin Airport Authority, who manage Dublin, Cork and Shannon Airports, employ over 3,000 people and have their headquarters on the airport campus. Aer Lingus, Ireland's flag carrier, have their headquarters on the Dublin Airport campus. CityJet, part of the Air France-KLM group, has its headquarters in Swords Business Campus and Air Contractors, part of the ASL Aviation group, has its head office on the Malahide Road in Swords. In 2014, Ryanair moved into a new €20m, 100,000 sq ft Dublin Head Office in Airside Business Park. The building was officially opened in April 2014.

Logistics In 2007 Tesco Ireland opened their new €70 million distribution centre in Lanestown, between Swords and Donabate. With a building footprint of over 68,000 m2 and a total volume of 1.55 million m2 the Tesco Ireland distribution centre is the largest building on the island of Ireland and one of the 10 largest building in the world. The building is over half a kilometre long and could fit 16 jumbo jets. It has 106 loading bays and supplies 106 stores up to 6 times a day.

Pharmaceutical Swords is the home to several international chemical producers and pharmaceutical giants, including Opec. Merck Sharp & Dohme (formally Organnon) employ over 500 people in their facility in Drynam, which manufactures women's health, anaesthesiology and mental health products. Bristol Myers Squibb employ over 400 people in their Swords Laboratories bulk pharmaceutical plant on Watery Lane. The Lonza Group employ 45 people in their European manufacturing facility for personal care and industrial biocides, also on Watery Lane.

Food and horticulture Swords is located in the centre of Fingal and is surrounded by farms growing crops like potatoes, wheat and barley. However, unlike the rest of Fingal, a lot of the food distributed from Swords has been imported from abroad. As of 2018, FoodCentral (marketed as "Ireland's national food park") was being developed south-west of Swords.

The Keeling's Group, who employ over 1700 people, have their headquarters in FoodCentral and use a lot of land around Swords. The Keeling's Farms division annually grow 2,500 tonnes of soft fruits/berries from 5 hectares of glasshouse, tunnel and field crops in Swords. They grow Bramley apples in 139 acres of orchards and lettuce in 8 acres of glasshouses. Their glasshouses also produce 1,500 tonnes of red, orange, yellow and green peppers annually. Keeling's also operate a large banana ripening facility for Chiquita which ripens over 3 million bananas each week. They also have separate ripening rooms for other fruits.

Total Produce, Ireland's largest agribusiness operates two facilities in Swords. Its facility in Swords Business Park includes a distribution and ripening centre for Fyffes Cape, Outspan, Green Ace and TOP Fruit products. Their "Uniplumo" facility on the Rathbeale Road, has 46,000 square metres of glasshouses for growing plants, flowers and tomatoes.

Dublin Time 
Dublin Time
Image: Adobe Stock Irina #256006317

Swords has a population of over 36,920 people. Swords also forms the centre of the wider Fingal county which has a population of over 329,000 people.

To set up a UBI Lab for Swords see: https://www.ubilabnetwork.org Twitter: https://twitter.com/UBILabNetwork

Twin Towns, Sister Cities Swords has links with:

🇫🇷 Ozoir-la-Ferrière, France
Text Atribution: Wikipedia Text under CC-BY-SA license

Antipodal to Swords is: 173.782,-53.46

Locations Near: Swords -6.2181,53.4597

🇮🇪 Fingal -6.218,53.46 d: 0  

🇮🇪 Dublin -6.25,53.35 d: 12.4  

🇮🇪 Blanchardstown -6.38,53.387 d: 13.4  

🇮🇪 Dún Laoghaire -6.14,53.3 d: 18.5  

🇮🇪 Tallaght -6.338,53.288 d: 20.7  

🇮🇪 Bray -6.1,53.2 d: 29.9  

🇮🇪 Naas -6.663,53.217 d: 40  

🇮🇪 Meath -6.689,53.655 d: 37.9  

🇮🇪 Navan -6.689,53.655 d: 37.9  

🇮🇪 Wicklow -6.033,52.978 d: 55  

Antipodal to: Swords 173.782,-53.46

🇳🇿 Dunedin 170.474,-45.884 d: 19139.9  

🇳🇿 Invercargill 168.373,-46.413 d: 19141.7  

🇳🇿 Queenstown 168.658,-45.033 d: 19007.6  

🇳🇿 Christchurch 172.617,-43.517 d: 18906.2  

🇳🇿 Canterbury 171.58,-43.543 d: 18900.7  

🇳🇿 Richmond 173.183,-41.333 d: 18666  

🇳🇿 Nelson 173.284,-41.269 d: 18659  

🇳🇿 Wellington 174.767,-41.283 d: 18659.1  

🇳🇿 Hutt 174.917,-41.217 d: 18651.1  

🇳🇿 Lower Hutt 174.917,-41.217 d: 18651.1  

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