Duleek has Potential for Greater Autotomy and Status – Jake Fitzsimons
Thursday 2nd April 2026, 16:00pm
By Darren Donoghue
In the world we live in today, with so much uncertainty, you would be forgiven to think that the youth of today have a laid-back approach to Ireland’s current affairs. However, after a chat over a cup of coffee with Duleek resident Jake Fitzsimons, it’s great to hear that the youth of today are taking such an interest in our local and national issues.
Jake Fitzsimons is a 23-year-old student from Duleek, Co. Meath and is a second-year undergraduate student studying Politics and History at DKIT. At twenty-three, Jake has already a quite impressive CV and is active at many events and meetings around the Meath/Louth border area.
Jake went on to tell Boyne News of his recent local activities,
“Firstly, I am a member and treasurer for the Local Town Committee for Duleek Development. We formed Duleek Development in August, and we finalised all of our set up in the last few weeks. Now, we are starting to raise fundraising events and we have a number of different issues we would like to get sorted such as dilapidated commercial buildings, more parking spaces to increase more footfall and to better connect better avenue’s and streets of the circulation of the village, as its such a large village. Also, we want to give a revamp of infrastructure and shopfronts.”
Jake is vastly experienced in political campaigns as he been involved with Geraldine Keogan, Amanda Smith and Gilian Toole’s campaign team in the past, with Gillan being elected as a TD for Meath East in the 2024 general election. Jake has also helped Senator Sharon Keogan in the past.
Jake, who is currently a local a Independent activist and community rep went on to say how he went about becoming an independent activist and community rep,
“In late 2025, I started doing bits for myself, going to events and giving speeches. I was then rewarded you could say for helping out in the political campaigns as my name was put forward by Geraldine Keogan onto the town committee and it was seconded by Carol Lennon.”
Jake does intend to run in the local elections in 2029, with Laytown-Bettystown, Drogheda and Dundalk are all potential areas he could put his name down on the ballot papers.
“I am currently thinking of running in multiple districts for the 2029 local elections. It just depends what time and commitments I have on at the time. Its three years away and a lot can happen in that time.
“At the minute I am trying to stay active and trying to organise events in all the areas and I am also very interested to get involved the Drogheda city status movement.
“I was listening to Anthony Murphy talking on the radio in regards to the City Status Movement. Anthony Murphy is doing a really great job advocating for the people of Drogheda. Anthony speaks about the people driven movement that’s sort of running adjacent to the council and the administrative bodies of the government. That’s a really heathy thing to promote in communities.
“I would like to offer up my services to set up any meetings for the Drogheda city status movement.”
The Drogheda City status was backed by many political representatives, including Louth TD Joanna Byrne.
“In Dundalk, I was the media spokesperson for Irish Behind Éire, which would be a republican grass roots association and advocacy group in Dundalk, Newry and Belfast. I have a little bit of involvement everywhere.”
Jake was asked on which local area he would be most likely to run in three years’ time for the local elections, and he gave the following response,
“Upon evaluation of which area is most welcome to and in need of a younger independent candidate, you would have to evaluate is there a seat for an independent candidate who is on the younger side. In three year’s time, will they be adding another seat to the area, as they did in the last general election, in Meath for example.”
In regard to the youth of today and politics, Jake said, “I would like to get young people more active in politics as a whole. I strongly believe in being an active member in my society and active member in my democracy. Being involved in charity groups and I am also involved in the Meath Civil Defence based out in Navan who would do river rescues.
“I believe in being active in society and democracy. I think that is something were we are losing with a lot of young people. Young people especially in their developmental years were affected by Covid and isolation.
“On a student level, political involvement and citizenship empowerment and having someone in their own demographic, someone like them that they can relate to more, do some things they would associate with older people. I think that is a step I can take to help improve the youth of today with politics.”
Returning to matters in his local area of Duleek, Jake raised a number of issues, “Parking and issues with footfall within the village is huge.
“Duleek is quite a big village, in the same way Drogheda is of merit of being upgraded to city status, Duleek as a village in my opinion is worthy of being reclassified as a town. In practice, it’s a mini town, in terms of the traffic it gets because of the location of it and because it’s a main route from Drogheda to Navan.
“Duleek gets a lot of traffic, but it doesn’t have the parking capacity to accommodate all that traffic, because of that, it’s difficult for people to park their car and walk around. All of that affects businesses.
“I want to bring true autotomy back to Duleek. In the last few years, our garda station in Duleek has completed shut down. The station its completely empty now. If I want to go get my passport signed, I would have to go to Ashbourne or Laytown.
“Duleek is a main hub that has a big population and yet it is being sidelined as its not important. Its being downgraded in status in terms of the administrative focus it gets.
“There is huge potential there for Duleek. When you compare to other places like Kells and Ratoath who organise and hold many community events. If we get the right energetic, passionate, eager personality in on one of the council seats in a few years’ time, we could have a plan to become a town.”
Turning to more national issues Jake spoke about Ireland’s recent immigration crisis, “I would like to express my support to Oldcastle Says No.
“Meath has been really lucky, especially Duleek when you take into account big asylum seekers hubs between Drogheda and Navan, we haven’t had many IPAS sites set up , but we became very very close in Oldcastle, Meath.
“I would like to express a big show of support Anne Marie Smith who was involved in Oldcastle says no and commend her on her work and the Oldcastle Says No movement in getting the potential IPAS site that was being planned, stopped.
“I would like to encourage people from other villages in Meath to still show up in events like Oldcastle because you may not think it directly affects you as its not in your village yet, but if one village falls, then yours could be next. Its imperative that we continue to support Oldcastle.
"I want asylum seekers and non-contributing refugees kept out of the Duleek area."
Jake finished by supporting Joanna Byrne in the latest Drogheda Untied saga and that he will be helping Malachy Steveson in his upcoming Dublin Central By-Election campaign.
Jake Fitzsimons
0852889325
email JakeFitzsimons07@gmail.com
If anyone would like to buy us a coffee, we have attache a link below. Every coffee bought helps with running costs:
https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fbuymeacoffee.com%2FBoyneNews%3Ffbclid%3DIwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTAAYnJpZBEwYVFaY2tPYmNuRk05WUFhUXNydGMGYXBwX2lkEDIyMjAzOTE3ODgyMDA4OTIAAR6XhKjdG8HaxLhiyoDqmL7SNwPkM9q2_4Zx_OHvfPjf1v5sk48Oexdb7UGZnA_aem_KONvC1YAzXL30lo4qA9E1Q&h=AT4JTAh3McvywwwmVwSRd14-sJcXDa1FBknUFGwC7ltdvj1sxazRfldlWlr4XK3YJaVRhvNTW6iEN6MO2BKRuVa7QxI5UCfj2U7ekbT1JLec_zjGGdqClppmtVOhekA7d4KY7x38qiZaWMg6C-sqewxOIg-7jjQqBA&__tn__=-UK-R&c[0]=AT6Xk2quvJ2DJVw9cUk7styeI-k1C81pDRMAXPK_UapOwg7hWmEG1pwvVOlL-d2CWBP1t4QQLNf87Kqh1VkSMd43D_m_I0vXeW30xnVSzYvZsaRXjmiDB0KLoDWL8vQSqBk0uQLLIEQZCaqwPAR78Bw8_WV3JGV5DER2BuyCGA3XNUWV2eo9TFOihctQm2UrfOA
