For 50 years Gráinne McFadden’s family has lived and farmed land near the village of the Naul in north Dublin. Their home is just over 20km from Dublin Airport but it was never much of a factor in their lives, until the north runway opened in August 2022.
“It’s an awful thing to wake up one morning and your life is changed forever,” she says.
“The noise, it’s overwhelming ... We can’t sit in our garden, we can’t open the windows, it penetrates through the whole house.”
Ms McFadden had been aware of the runway’s development, which was granted planning permission in 2007, but her home was not on any planned flight path. Yet, since the runway opened, flights have continued to take off over her house.
David McWilliams: ‘I’ve never seen anything like this economic chaos. Buckle up’
My grandfather died by suicide. I work in the same Irish university where he taught history
Government plans to quickly remove citizenship from convicted terrorist
Contraceptive concerns: ‘When I came off the pill, everything became so much better’
“In the summer months, they can be as much as every two minutes,” she says.
“We were never supposed to experience this noise and then to just wake up one morning and this to be bombarding your home. There’s up to 80 decibels in our home sometimes.”
That’s equivalent to the noise of a busy city street or a dishwasher in the same room.
When the wind blows from the east, her home is not affected by flight noise, she explains.
“We have had a week of respite, which has been amazing because there’s been an easterly wind. But this morning they started at 7am, because the wind changed back and 70-90 per cent of the flights go over us, because 70-90 per cent of the time the wind is westerly.”
The situation has caused her family enormous stress, anxiety and loss of sleep, but she is now concerned the noise from the aircraft could be causing deeper long-term physiological damage.
A report published on Thursday estimated that aircraft noise from the airport was causing cardiovascular issues for nearly 17,000 people living in its vicinity. The report by PMCA Economic Consulting was commissioned by the St Margaret’s The Ward Residents Group, which has been in dispute with airport authorities over noise issues for several years. It estimated the health costs of noise from the airport at almost €800 million.
“You hear this and you don’t want to go home,” she says. “I’m that upset. The concern is over what impact it’s having on us that we can’t actually see, that I know it’s having on myself, my husband and my kids.”
[ Dublin Airport operator launches noise information portal for residentsOpens in new window ]
Her family’s health is now a “huge concern”, she says. “It scares me to the point I want to get out. Losing your home where you’ve always been, I never anticipated having to think about that. Having to live somewhere else, we thought we’d come out of there when we died of old age. I never anticipated we would have to leave here.”
In a statement, DAA, which operates the airport, said it was “very aware that airport operations have an impact on local communities and works hard to minimise this”.
It said it was aware of the PMCA report “and will take time to understand the methodology used”.
[ Health cost of noise at Dublin Airport put at €800mOpens in new window ]
DAA has invested more than €20 million to date on noise mitigation measures, it said, “including buying out or insulating the homes of people most impacted and we will continue to do more”.
On Thursday, DAA issued an online “noise information portal” to provide information about flights to and from the airport and how they may affect the local community, it said.
“We continue to incentivise airlines to bring the newest, quietest technology aircraft to Dublin so that noise levels are reduced and since the opening of North Runway, significantly fewer people are impacted by noise as we no longer fly over heavily populated, urban areas of Dublin city.”
