Microsoft | PUBLIC TRANSPORT

25 SEPTEMBER 2023

When I was young I had a few friends who lived in Sandyford which was in the country rather than the city. It was often the case that they could not come to school because of snow.

Sandyford is a suburb of Dublin, located in Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown, Ireland.

Sandyford Business District makes up much of the suburb and encompasses 4 business parks: Sandyford Business Park, Stillorgan Business Park, Central Park and South County Business Park. Some of the multinational companies based in the area include Google, Facebook, Microsoft and AIB.

The Luas Green Line was built through the Business District and the Kilmacud, Stillorgan, Sandyford and Central Park stops serve the area, the middle two lying along the eastern edge of the original district. All four of these stops are in the Sandyford Business District. Sandyford was the Green Line terminus until the extension to Cherrywood opened in October 2010. The depot for the Green Line is located on the eastern edge of the Business District.

Sandyford House, a pub in the centre of the village, has been an inn and coach house since the 1690s. For 200 years it was a stopping place for travellers en route to Enniskerry. From 1803 onwards, the Chatham Street to Enniskerry mail coach (a two-hour journey) stopped and deposited the region’s mail at the inn, which acted as the local post office.

Sandyford Business District spans one of the biggest business parks in Ireland, consisting of over 1,000 companies employing approximately 26,000 people. It was officially opened in June 1967 on a site of 120 acres and for 50 years was known as the “Sandyford Industrial Estate”; 85 acres allocated to light industry and the rest to offices.

The area includes several separate business parks and sites, including Sandyford Business Park, Stillorgan Business Park, Central Park, and South County Business Park.

A proposal to establish a Sandyford Business District area, to include the core Sandyford Business Park as well as the other areas, resulted in the establishment of the Sandyford Business Improvement District Company (SBID) in January 2017. The area has capacity for 17,500 more employees, 350,000 sq m of commercial floor space and 1,000 residential units.

Companies in the business district include American Airlines, Barclaycard, Canon, Microsoft, Novell, and Vodafone Ireland. The Irish Management Institute also has its headquarters in northern Sandyford. The Irish Mint, a division of the Central Bank of Ireland, is located in Sandyford, west of the M50 and north of the village.