Funny thing. As a city it's hidden until you're in it. You'll have crossed the county line before you realise that you're in it at all. None of the ribbon development that draws you slowly into other cities. Then you turn the corner at Sallypark and it all unfolds before your eyes. Not a glorious sight, by any means, but for those of us for whom it is home, a most welcome one. And an unchanging one. I have a sketch at home of the city taken from this very spot in 1803, and if it is not the same, it is not very different.

Cliffs on your left and the seven hills of Waterford City on the right. The city now sprawling for miles south and east. Beginning to spawl on the west side now as well. But not to the North. Because since the 17th century a county boundary hems the city into Sallypark and Ferrybank on the North side of the river. Historically that didn't matter too much. New Ross was the port of choice for Kilkenny, and Waterford feeling its independence threatened by the Dukes of Ormonde were happy to keep Kilkenny at a distance.

So much so that the Suir was not bridged at Waterford until 1793 (in an early incarnation of public private partnership, it was built privately and tolled). The cost of crossing the bridge at one penny each way discouraged casual crossing and kept a distance between the people north and south of the river until 1912 when the wooden bridge was replaced and citizens of the city could cross freely and free in both directions.

And that is where the matter rested for the best part of the twentieth century. Waterford City was in the throes of a tailspin into economic depression. Industry after industry closed down. In real terms the city shrank over the course of the century. Critically too, the country was split into regions in the early 1970s. Being the biggest urban area in the South East region Waterford might have expected to take on the mantle of regional capital as a matter of course. They reckoned without Kilkenny however, who locked horns in 1975 and formally resolved to become the capital of the South East. Being closer to Dublin was a big tactical advantage for Kilkenny, and that advantage was pressed home in a very simple manner, as anyone who has ever had the misfortune to travel the road from Thomastown to Waterford will testify. By the simple expedient of carrying out no road improvements to one of the worst stretches of National Primary road over the period of 30 years Waterford was pushed further to the margin.

Now for reasons that are none too apparent to me, but which with the benefit of hindsight will probably become blindingly obvious, Waterford's decline halted - some time in the early 1990s. It might have something to do with the fact that the decimation of the City's old industrial base was so total that it became an ideal blank canvas for new industry. It certainly has something to do with the growth of the two great public services in the City, the Institute of Technology, and the Regional Hospital. The regeneration of the port in its new location in South Kilkenny seems to have helped as well.

Whether or which, the City is now a boom town. And is choked by that great hallmark of all modern boom towns - gridlock. The battle for supremacy as Regional capital was won when the City was designated as Gateway city to the South East in the National Spatial Strategy. As if to labour the point the Local Government Act of 2001 designated Waterford as the only city in the South East and clarified Kilkenny's status as being that of a town.

Interestingly, while all this was going on in the city, the county started to take on a new aspect as well. After years of apparent acceptance of the county as what a Meathman once remarked to me as "an unremarkable county", it became clear that in fact the people of the county have been sitting on a hidden jewel for years. Keeping delights like the town of Lismore, the Vee Gap (which we graciously share with Tipperary), Mount Melleray, Coumshinaun, Mahon Falls, Clonea Strand, Dunmore East, Mount Congreve and the Copper Coast to ourselves couldn't go on forever.( After all this is the countryside in which Stanley Kubrick chose to film his lush epic, 'Barry Lyndon'. It transpires that outside of Dublin, Waterford is the only county where tourism is not in decline this year. To the point where West Waterford is in grave danger of becoming the new West Cork.

It might be a coincidence, but it is hard to shake off the notion that the improvement in the economic fortunes of the county and city might be reflected in the improvement in the fortunes of the County's hurling team (despite this year's blip). Could it be that the team and the supporters have a pride in the county and city that may not have been as pronounced in harder times, when the best the county could offer was a ticket to New York and the promise of a place to lay your head in the Bronx? Or could it be that in the manner that the Celtic Tiger is sometimes credited to the confidence engendered in the country by the fortunes of Jack Charlton's Ireland team, the Waterford hurlers have led the revival in confidence and given it a focus?

Either way, there certainly has been a discernible puffing out of the chest in Waterford over the last decade. The populace as a whole are far more aware of their heritage than heretofore. The shelves of the 'Local Books' section of the Book Centre in Red Square in Waterford are groaning under the weight of new publications celebrating aspects of that heritage, be they Jackie O'Neill's book of reminiscences, or Dickie Roche's history of the county hurling team or Tom Fewer's works. The 'Up the Deise' website has become a great resource of local history and folklore. If there is a better local museum in the country than the Granary, I haven't seen it.

Back to the city for a moment. The city is thriving but it is geographically imbalanced. It is growing in all directions except one. North. Because North of Waterford is county Kilkenny. And that county boundary is a very sore point indeed. For example, when McPhillips the Kilkenny contractors proposed a shopping centre at Abbeylands, within county Kilkenny, the city objected on the grounds that it would unhinge trade in the City. Residents of south Kilkenny suspected that the city council was trying to preserve its rateable income. The city council countered that development in that area should take account of the fact that in reality it forms part of an organic entity, the city, irrespective of legal boundaries and it wasn't desirable that development might go on willy nilly on the fringes of the city without regard to its impact on rest of the city. The city council won out through the planning process.

That now appears to have been the first shot in what might become a very interesting battle. Because the city council followed up in July with an audacious proposal - which it has submitted to the Minister for the Environment for approval - to expand the boundaries of the city for a radius of about four miles into South Kilkenny. The plan was so bold and wide ranging that a stunned Councillor Mary Hilda Cavanagh of Kilkenny County Council, likened it to the work of "Hitler and his henchmen". One might conclude that Councillor Cavanagh is either guilty of a slight overreaction or is no great student of history. Neither interpretation is very flattering. Nevertheless, the good people of Kilmacow, Dunkitt, Rathculliheen and Slieverue are aghast.

Why? Hurling of course. The 'Waterford News and Star' reports that the GAA clubs of South Kilkenny have banded together to resist this assault on their proud heritage. Puzzled observers in the city struggle to remember the last hurler of note to emanate from the alleged "lebensraum". Nevertheless the clubs in the affected area cling vicariously to the successes of their colleagues further up the county and derive great pleasure from them. Particular