I hate Ireland/Dublin.

petrochemical

I'm in a bad mood today,so I've decided to rant about Ireland/Dublin.
Things I hate about Dublin:

1. The Architecture- an international embarassment. Not a single building I can think of, old or new, that compares to some of the stuff I've seen abroad, even in really poor countries. The architects have no aesthetics, they don't know what looks good. Of course, you'll find plenty of Architectural awards and books stating the contrary, with loads of BS about light and space, and the juxtaposition of bla, bla, bla...Sorry, not good enough- e.g. Liberty Hall

2. I can't relax in this city anymore. Dublin used to be relaxed. Now, everywhere I go I'm worried that I'm not keeping up with Mr Celtic Tiger and his 15 houses and 100,000 euro car. Everything is a bloody rat race. With no winners.

3. The drinking. Another source of cringing international embarassment. I've seen so many friends turn into shadows of their former selves because of this. We seem to revel in it, instead of just not doing it. Have a coke, you idiots. Save your brain and your liver. Look at George Best. What a coward. They should rename Belfast Airport, Cowards Airport, in honour of someone who was to cowardly to face his life, an emotional cripple. And that's what alcoholics are. They don't even know why they drink.

4. Scumbags. They're everywhere. With their hoodies and their boy racer stupid looking tin cans. And their God's Kitchen "music", which sounds like a car alarm. They're so aggressive. You look at them or ask them directions, and they're itching to hit you. They think they're so hard, but their "Urban" culture doesn't compare with that of Europe or the States. Look at the Graffiti, crap. They can't breakdance, and "Spi-dur" is their laughable attempt at Hip-hop/gangsta cool. And they put that accent on, no doubt. Hammed up to the max.

5. Taxi drivers- scum of the earth. Typical uneducated (or self ed-u-in-cay-ted) opinionated, angry, hateful, greedy, mercenaries. They'd kill their own mother for a fare. God knows how many times I've nearly been killed by their driving.

6. Cultural Snobs- The new breed of Hi-Co's as David Mc Williams calls them. Prime example- John Kelly. Just because you listen to Mongolian warblers does not mean that you are better than me. Morons.

More later, Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr............

shoutman

Jesus let it out man will you.....

I'd like to take you up on one or two of your points, what you said about Taxi Drivers and Architecture would be probably what annoyed me the most. But looking at the time I will go to bed and post tommorow.

yessuh

on the subject of terrible buildings, can anyone please let me know if the Donnelly Centre on Cork Street is a listed building?

Aziraphale

And ... things I hate about Ireland:

a) the lack of trains

b) the lack of swimming pools

c) when present, the cost of swimming pools

d) the way banks, etc., charge for stuff that in every other country in W. Europe is free, and make out you're lucky to get it at all

e) the big vocabulary gap where you'd expect to find 'customer service'

f) all the new bungalows/concrete houses in the middle of a hillside which a few years ago was green

petrochemical, I agree with you on numbers 1 and 3.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

Nail on the head, people.

Now jsut back and wait for the pretnetious **** to start up with their 'well, if you don;t like it you can just get the **** out, because the of us alcoholics have a great time..."

copacetic

was going to disagree, but I guess I can't now because if I did I would be a pretentious wanker according to pratt above..

the boss of me

As a Dublin taxi driver I would like to thank you for your comments. But even if everything you say about me is true. I will console myself with this thought "at least I'm not you"

marco murphy

Get it off your chest !!!!

Plus we are behind on broadband. How annoying.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

daveym wrote:

was going to disagree, but I guess I can't now because if I did I would be a pretentious wanker according to pratt above..

You could, of course, have disagreed for different reasons before resorting to name calling. Did that ever occur to you? Just goes to show you the narrow-minded thinking and pettiness that goes on around here.

Linoge

Whats this got to do with travel and holidays? This is an AH thread if ever I saw one, and with the amount of bitching going on already it defo looks like its heading there.

OP, you need to stop reading The Star and conclude why you don't like Dublin/Ireland as opposed to regurgitating some asshole columnists views.

Nala82

Hi,
I totally agree with what that guy about Ireland, sick of the country! - if thats what u want to call it.
people today and their "have to have it" attitude getting into debt of all sorts just to have the 07 car, the 4 bedroomed house in the new estate, the new baby..... its just all debt!

The drinking is an absolute disgrace,I know 3 friends of mine in their 20's with damaged stomach lining dur to knocking back the aul JB 3 nights a week, its sad, very sad.

the scumbags...don't get me started,please now..stripy jumpers,tracksuit bottoms and big white runners,how sad does that look? and ahem, where are their parents??

whats really got me in this country is the services, ive had such bad service from doctors, health service and college, still waiting a year and a half to have my leg seen to at hospital
the college services were/are a joke.

gent9662

The Taxi Drivers in ireland are the scum of the earth, remember back in 200 when they marched in dublin and nearly crushed a young child:

http://archives.tcm.ie/irishexaminer/2000/11/29/current/ipage_16.htm

They are the next to the UVF for pure thuggery, and I hate their hrad done by attitude, they tried to stop Dublin bus from going to the airport many years ago. Take them out of ireland and you would have a place worthy to live in.

DonJose

Yep gotta agree 100%. I just returned to Ireland after living abroad for 15 years, the ONLY reason I returned is to put my kids through school, I believe Ireland has the best education system in the world. As soon as my kids are in college I'm outta here.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

Linoge wrote:

OP, you need to stop reading The Star and conclude why you don't like Dublin/Ireland as opposed to regurgitating some asshole columnists views.

I may be wrong here, but don't tabloids pull out the stops to tell you how blindingly wonderful our Nirvana is?

Yep gotta agree 100%. I just returned to Ireland after living abroad for 15 years, the ONLY reason I returned is to put my kids through school, I believe Ireland has the best education system in the world. As soon as my kids are in college I'm outta here.

Again, I oculd be wrong here, but I though Scanadanvia and Holland were proven to have better and more holisitic systers? Or was it just because their kids are happpier?

Honestly can;t remember, so correct me if nessecary..

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

having a coke is generally more expensive than having a pint in this country, so it's more economical to get plastered than to waste your money on a drink that's going to rot your teeth and which is just as addictive as alcohol, without the fun.

Nala82

Ireland best education system? i dunno about that now...
I have a friend from Kansas, America, from what shes told me about the education system there it seems fantastic.
isnt there a problem in Ireland with classes being over crowded?
theres 2 schools in my town, 1 is all porta cabins, the other is half porta cabins.....

AoiFa

i really dont think that you should be tarring everyone with the same brush! i mean Im a twenty two year old that desnt go out and get roaring drunk all the time... i like feeling in control. Also there are plenty of very well educated taxi men out there. hardly all scumbags! also, half the buildings in dublin are british so dont blame us for being a victim of barberic colonialism. its only a rat race now it wont be forever, if you were living in thus country in the 80s youd be complaining of how **** it was no jobs no money;) . really are people never satisfied...

r3nu4l

Well said AoiFa,

Sounds like the OP is a little dejected with his/her own life tbh. Get off your arse and do something about it instead of complaining.

Personally, I think the Luas bridge at Drumcondra looks great, you may not agree.

As for the drinking, ever been to Londons East End? North Philidelphia? There are thousands of people who don't drink or drink very little when they are out. I'm as happy with a coffee as I am with a nice Guinness.

Scumbags are everywhere too, not exclusive to Dublin or Ireland, there are parts of London I don't go near because they are far more dangerous than Dublin ever has been.

Culture snobs: Yes lots of those too, try going to Chelsea or Oxford or Cambridge and you'll meet plenty more What do you want everyone in the world to conform to your narrow-minded view on life? Everyone in the middle ground? :rolleyes:

For people who talk about bank charges: in England most banks offer free banking Yipee, then look at their charges for late payments or dipping into overdrafts or certain money transfers. Some banks charge £30 (~€45) for a late direct debit. In Ireland the fee is only about €7 or less

My point is that for everything you dislike about Dublin/Ireland there are equally as many problems in other countries worldwide and if you were living there you'd be moaning like a spoiled child in those countries too. I agree that these things are hard to put up with but grow up and get on with your own life instead of ranting about everything here.

Ireland today is way better than the 80's where a job was like golddust and even having a job one day didn't mean you'd have one the next day.

GreenHell

Move to Cork.

Ya Dublin is a dump been living here for 4 months and sick of the place. Recently went to barcelona on holidays, now thats how a city should be laid out. Feck all traffic, excellent metro system, relaxed population.. Of course then there are the 60 million Ho's and pick pockets that appear after 11, but then they happily stay in one location so you know were not to be.

Raekwon

GreenHell wrote:

Move to Cork.

Haha, that made me laugh

r3nu4l

GreenHell wrote:

Move to Cork.

Didn't realise we were in the humour forum

I reported this post for moving to either Dublin City or AH but come to think about it wouldn't the ThunderDome be better?

masterK

GreenHell wrote:

Recently went to barcelona on holidays, now thats how a city should be laid out. Feck all traffic,

I was there during the summer and come home saying I'll never complain about Dublin traffic again after seen the gridlock in Barcelona.

The OP sounds like he has a real chip on his shoulder and wants to blame anything else for his unhappiness.

There's scumbags, bad architecture, snobs, bad taxi drivers etc. in every major city in the world.

So when are you moving out of Dublin?

magpie

1. The Architecture- an international embarassment. Not a single building I can think of, old or new, that compares to some of the stuff I've seen abroad, even in really poor countries. The architects have no aesthetics, they don't know what looks good. Of course, you'll find plenty of Architectural awards and books stating the contrary, with loads of BS about light and space, and the juxtaposition of bla, bla, bla...Sorry, not good enough- e.g. Liberty Hall

I think College Green, Merrion Square, The Custom House, Galatrava's bridge etc all have their merit. Depends on your mood though, I suppose.

2. I can't relax in this city anymore. Dublin used to be relaxed. Now, everywhere I go I'm worried that I'm not keeping up with Mr Celtic Tiger and his 15 houses and 100,000 euro car. Everything is a bloody rat race. With no winners.

True. But what do you care? Live your own life and stuff the rest of them. Its all on credit anyway.

3. The drinking. Another source of cringing international embarassment. I've seen so many friends turn into shadows of their former selves because of this. We seem to revel in it, instead of just not doing it. Have a coke, you idiots. Save your brain and your liver. Look at George Best. What a coward. They should rename Belfast Airport, Cowards Airport, in honour of someone who was to cowardly to face his life, an emotional cripple. And that's what alcoholics are. They don't even know why they drink.

Yeah, its not so good. But again, you can always distance yourself from this by doing things that will not expose you to boozers. Nice walk in the country for example.

4. Scumbags. They're everywhere. With their hoodies and their boy racer stupid looking tin cans. And their God's Kitchen "music", which sounds like a car alarm. They're so aggressive. You look at them or ask them directions, and they're itching to hit you. They think they're so hard, but their "Urban" culture doesn't compare with that of Europe or the States. Look at the Graffiti, crap. They can't breakdance, and "Spi-dur" is their laughable attempt at Hip-hop/gangsta cool. And they put that accent on, no doubt. Hammed up to the max.

OK, now you're onto something.

5. Taxi drivers- scum of the earth. Typical uneducated (or self ed-u-in-cay-ted) opinionated, angry, hateful, greedy, mercenaries. They'd kill their own mother for a fare. God knows how many times I've nearly been killed by their driving.

Which is why I walk when possible

6. Cultural Snobs- The new breed of Hi-Co's as David Mc Williams calls them. Prime example- John Kelly. Just because you listen to Mongolian warblers does not mean that you are better than me. Morons.

At least they don't listen blare Happy Hardcore out of their 'modded' micras.

maxi-twist

petrochemical wrote:

2. I can't relax in this city anymore. Dublin used to be relaxed. Now, everywhere I go I'm worried that I'm not keeping up with Mr Celtic Tiger and his 15 houses and 100,000 euro car. Everything is a bloody rat race. With no winners.

Obviously mr celtic tiger is a winner if he has 15 houses and an 100,000 euro car.I dont see the problem with rich people.Whats wrong with someone who works his ass off to afford 15 houses and a car?Your blatantly jealous.

Aziraphale

r3nu4l wrote:

For people who talk about bank charges: in England most banks offer free banking Yipee, then look at their charges for late payments or dipping into overdrafts or certain money transfers. Some banks charge £30 (~€45) for a late direct debit. In Ireland the fee is only about €7 or less

Yeah, but for those of us with a preference for a positive bank balance rather than a sequence of loans, it costs. I suppose it's fairer ...in a Socialist sort of way ...taking money from people when they've got it rather than when they haven't.

I'll never complain about Dublin traffic again after seen the gridlock in Barcelona.

Traffic in Ireland - good bit: the road network was built for a bigger population than we've got, so yay! we're about the only people who don't suffer congestion town-to-town. Traffic in Ireland - bad bit: it's really hard to get anywhere by public transport. Unless you're willing to take two days and go via $BIGCITY to somewhere 20km up the coast....

irelandhater

i couldnt agree more with the topic of this thread :-)
ireland's just such a rotten country...

Latchy

You didn't need to post irelandhater, your avatar say's it all

(that's not to say i agree or disagree with you or OP )

irelandhater

but i created my account on here only so i could reply to this thread which i found by chance
for a time of my life i was living and working in ireland, and it just didnt feel right, and i started out with a list of things that annoyed me, but i think i'll refrain from posting it; that would cause a real flame i guess...

Latchy

Ah sure and you picked the perfect username so now you've arrived you might as well go the whole hog and give us all the speal .

Sure it will be intresting and at least you get it off your chest like OP

rossie1977

i suggest one of the countries towards the bottom of this list if you don't like ireland http://www.heritage.org/research/features/index/countries.cfm

irelandhater

Ok, I just dug it out and defused it a quite a bit:


1) Anti-social: Irish people are so antisocial. You never make real friends with any of them. You go out, see how they get drunk, then their either start drinking to you or picking a fight with you. That's about it. While I did have a couple of non-Irish friends, it was absolutely impossible to make Irish friends, as Irish people in general (and especially at my age I guess; i.e. mid 20's) seem to me just too superficial with foreigners.

2) Irish women are worthless sluts: They get drunk like men and then behave like real hookers. Do i need to say more?

3) Irish arrogance: That must be because of the so-called Celtic tiger. Irish people feel so proud of their "strong economy" and think they know better than any one else how to do business and hard work, but all their bloody "growth" comes at the price of making ever more debts, ever higher consumer prices, and virtually no social benefits. Irish wages aren´t really so high as you might think. You just see more of your gross pay because you don´t pay a pension and health insurance and what else. But then you don´t have a pension, right?

4) Cost of living: During my time in Dublin I really did get used to paying 5 Euro for a bottle of worthless ALDI wine and started to believe that was cheap, until on my return I saw I could get the same thing for less than 2 euro. The very same deodorant I used to buy in the Tesco for around 5 Euro over there costs around 2 Euro over here! Same point here, what's the point in getting paid "so much money" (not so much after all) when everything is twice as expensive (btw: I am from Western Europe, so I'd like to know what all of the Polish people in Dublin think about the prices in Ireland).

Also, some banks in Ireland brag about not having bank charges. Huh? Before going to Ireland I didn't know such a thing as bank charges even existed. Over here I don't even pay any fees for my credit card which I can use for free (yes FREE) withdrawals anywhere in the world, which is why every time the clerk tried to "sell" me a credit card I just replied "no thanks ;-)". Come to Ireland and pay much more for much less!

5) Renting: The Irish are just GREEDY!

6) Infrastructure: 1.5 m people in Dublin and how many inner-city trains? DART and 2 LUAS lines. I beg your pardon? And then they brag about this LUAS thing like it's the fanciest thing on earth. Over here we just call them trams and there are about 10 different lines in every mid-sized city of them. Plus the commuter railway and subway. Of these there are also many different lines that run through the whole city and not just ONE (ridiculous) DART line. Where do all the taxes go in Ireland? Oh right, you need to pay your best-paid head of government in the world. What's he achieved again...?
Besides I guess Dublin must be the only place in the world where you have to queue for a taxi after going out on a weekend's night!!!

7) Quality of services: On one occasion I needed to post an item quick so I paid the courier service. 18 bloody euro for a single letter! I was promised it would arrive within four days. It NEVER arrived. An Post said the address didn´t exist and I got the item back. Thev address was clearly written on the item and I had visited the place myself, but they insisted the address was wrong. ****. On another occasion I was moving house and ordered a taxi VAN. I waited 4 hours until it arrived because there weren´t enough VANs to go around. While waiting, I tried other companies but same here: not enough VANs. When the VAN finally arrived I was told I had to pay another 50 euro removal fee. EXCUSE ME???!!! The day I left Ireland for good I was going to take my bike with me so I had to order a VAN again. I called 2 days before and said I really *NEED* to rely on this taxi because if not I will miss my plane. Then I called again only 2 hours before the agreed time and reminded the company of my taxi. I was assured everything would be fine. Of course everything was NOT fine. I waited 15 minutes and was getting really nervous before I got a call from the driver. He was in the wrong street! Freaking dumbass. He assured me I would still arrive on time - by taking the M50!!! Now guess who had to pay for that!

8) The weather: Absolutely useless.

9) The driving: Irish drivers are complete morons! It seems they have never learnt any road rule. During my year in Ireland I had two accidents on my bike where the car driver was at fault! A car driver will usually only take note of you when you place yourself right in front of them. This drives them mad, but at least it saved my life.
10) On top of it all, the man who runs this country is the best-paid head of government in the world! I know I said that before, but it's a point on its own.

Really, I guess what Ireland badly needs is another invasion by the English to put some order in place...

Kevster

I hate this country too and am ashamed of many aspects of our culture. However, your opinion on taxi-drivers is not sound and is a huge generalisation.

BuffyBot

Don't re-animate the dead.

Don't resurrect threads that are years old.