Where should we live?

fergalfrog · 02-03-2009 1:55pm #1

My fiancee and I moved back to Ireland recently after spending the past 7 years in Australia. We are currently living in North County Galway where we are both from originally but we are looking to move somewhere else and so just looking for suggestions.

We don't have a huge amount of criteria but there are a few bits of criteria. We are looking for a medium sized town and would like to live within walking distance of such a town. The town should preferably be no more than 3 hours from County Galway. We don't want to live in a city - hence Dublin, Limerick Cork are out. I run an internet based business so I can work anywhere that has broadband. My fiancee is a primary school teacher with 9 years experience so she should be able to get a job fairly quickly too.

Ennis Co. Clare was one town mentioned and we are going to spend two nights there in the next week or two to check it out. Others that have been mentioned are Sligo town, Greystones (Co. Wicklow) and Clifden (Co. Galway)

We are both now Australian citizens and may go back there but for the next few years want to give it a go in this country.

The winning town will get 2 new residents and we would like to think we would be an addition to any community. I play football/soccer and we both are active in our local community.

We will spend at least two nights in any suggested town so a very brief description of the pros/cons would be great. All suggestions welcome and if anyone is interested I will report back here including feedback on towns we go to.

Thank you for reading this and any questions just let me know.

AdrianII · 02-03-2009 2:00pm

Carrick on shannon in leitrim is a lovel town, on the river shannon, small enough town but great place to go out i. Lots of activities to do, rent is cheap, lots of local aminities etc.

Give it a look up

fergalfrog · 02-03-2009 2:02pm

AdrianII wrote: »

Carrick on shannon in leitrim is a lovel town, on the river shannon, small enough town but great place to go out.

Great suggestion - it's on the shortlist!

prentice · 02-03-2009 2:10pm

fergalfrog wrote: »

My fiancee and I moved back to Ireland recently after spending the past 7 years in Australia. We are currently living in North County Galway where we are both from originally but we are looking to move somewhere else and so just looking for suggestions.

We don't have a huge amount of criteria but there are a few bits of criteria. We are looking for a medium sized town and would like to live within walking distance of such a town. The town should preferably be no more than 3 hours from County Galway. We don't want to live in a city - hence Dublin, Limerick Cork are out. I run an internet based business so I can work anywhere that has broadband. My fiancee is a primary school teacher with 9 years experience so she should be able to get a job fairly quickly too.

Ennis Co. Clare was one town mentioned and we are going to spend two nights there in the next week or two to check it out. Others that have been mentioned are Sligo town, Greystones (Co. Wicklow) and Clifden (Co. Galway)

We are both now Australian citizens and may go back there but for the next few years want to give it a go in this country.

The winning town will get 2 new residents and we would like to think we would be an addition to any community. I play football/soccer and we both are active in our local community.

We will spend at least two nights in any suggested town so a very brief description of the pros/cons would be great. All suggestions welcome and if anyone is interested I will report back here including feedback on towns we go to.

Thank you for reading this and any questions just let me know.

Westport or Louisburgh (Co Mayo). Broadband available in both places.

Eglinton · 02-03-2009 2:28pm

AdrianII wrote: »

Carrick on shannon in leitrim is a lovel town, on the river shannon, small enough town but great place to go out i. Lots of activities to do, rent is cheap, lots of local aminities etc.

Give it a look up

If you're thinking of buying, then it doesn't get much better than Carrick from a buyers perspective. I doubt a house has sold there in 6 months+ so the negotiations can only take the prices tumbling downward. Literally hundreds of houses available in a town with only 3000 residents. Carrick also has a host of amenities, sports clubs etc. and is equidistant from Galway and Dublin timewise (1 hours 45 mins). Decent quality broadband is available and plenty of National Schools within a medium radius.

Beware of some of the newer developments though. Very bad build quality and noisy house parties.

fergalfrog · 02-03-2009 2:52pm

Thanks for the posts so far. Just thought I'd mention that we would probably rent or do one of those rent to buy schemes and buy after 6 months just in case we didn't like the place.

Westport is not a bad suggestion - Claremorris was also mentioned but since it's only a half an hour from where we currently live it's a little too familiar to us. We were hoping to get somewhere new as it were.

galwaybabe · 02-03-2009 3:19pm

Castlebar is a buzzing town. It is only about an hour and a half north of Galway city. Westport ticks all the right boxes for me too. Good luck with your move

jdivision · 02-03-2009 4:31pm

Strandhill or Mullaghmore in Sligo

Victor · 03-03-2009 4:08am

You really need to find jobs first. No sense in buying somewhere only to have to move or deal with a huge commute.

Are any schools actually hiring these days?

jd · 03-03-2009 4:40am

Eglinton wrote: »

If you're thinking of buying, then it doesn't get much better than Carrick from a buyers perspective. I doubt a house has sold there in 6 months+ so the negotiations can only take the prices tumbling downward. Literally hundreds of houses available in a town with only 3000 residents. Carrick also has a host of amenities, sports clubs etc. and is equidistant from Galway and Dublin timewise (1 hours 45 mins). Decent quality broadband is available and plenty of National Schools within a medium radius.

Beware of some of the newer developments though. Very bad build quality and noisy house parties.

What will happen when they want to sell in the future? Hundreds of empty houses in a town of 3k people <> a place I'd like to live, let alone buy a house in.

fergalfrog · 03-03-2009 10:24am

Forget about buying or selling for now. We will rent initially and we have bought/sold property before so we're not going to get stuck with something. (Thankfully we were in Australia when every Irish person thought they were Donald Trump and have our heads firmly on the gorund)

Also forget about the jobs situation. We didn't have jobs when we got back from Australia. I can work anywhere and if my fiancee has to go temping for a while so be it.

We are purely looking for suggestions of suitable towns. Is there nowhere worth living in place like Tipperary? Is there a better place for this thread - I couldn't find anywhere else more suitable.

jd · 03-03-2009 10:46am

How about Kilkenny?

fergalfrog · 03-03-2009 10:51am

jd wrote: »

How about Kilkenny?

Yeah I was there once but a long time ago. Does it still have the train loads of stag parties coming down every weekend?

fergalfrog · 23-03-2009 7:11pm

Just for anyone keeping an eye on this thread we spent one night in Carrick on Shannon over the weekend. We were able to get there in about an hour and were impressed all up.

There is a very good chance we will move there over the coming months.

leonvquinn · 23-12-2012 8:13pm

Stag parties...lol. Oops..

Good call anyway and good to have you around.

Ta for gettin me into footie.

The_Conductor · 23-12-2012 10:21pm

leonvquinn wrote: »

Stag parties...lol. Oops..

Good call anyway and good to have you around.

Ta for gettin me into footie.

You might like to check the vintage of the posts you're replying to- the last person on this thread was over 3 years ago. Please stop resurrecting threads.

Closed.

Where should we live?

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