Cork City and safety.

questions101

Hi guys,

I am new to the forums so I do apologise in advance if I made a mistake on the post.

I am posting as I have an opportunity to move to Cork (which seems like a wonderful city) with my partner with my company. But a few things which are vital for us to move need answering.

I am curious about people’s experience of crime in city itself and of racism. Being of obvious Indian and having London accent I hope it doesn’t make me or my partner (who is Sikh and wears a turban) with a big red sign for any moronic thugs (who seem to be everywhere!).

This is a key deciding factor about moving to Cork for us.

Anyway, I hope to make it across to the lovely country

Hope this post finds everyone well

dahamsta

Wouldn't Cory City be somewhere on the West coast of America? Dude? Arf arf.

I've never experienced racism to a great degree in Cork, but then being a blonde white guy I wouldn't have. I've heard a good few racist jokes in my time, and the occasional rant from an ignorant taxi driver, but I'd imagine you'd get that anywhere. Similarly, I think you're quite likely to experience racism in Cork, but I doubt there's anywhere in this country - possibly anywhere in the world - that you won't. On balance, I think Cork might be slightly better than many places in Ireland as we're quite diverse and dealing with it reasonably well, but that could just be me generally keeping to myself these days.

I hear tales of violence in the city with disbelief. You know the type of thing: you can't go out in the streets these days without being mugged and/or raped, and assaulted, and groped and abused and yadda yadda. I heard the same stories when I was in my early twenties hanging around dark alleys waiting for a taxi to come back into down. I was frightened a couple of times, but I was never attacked or dragged into a fight. I don't doubt there's more violence on our streets now than when I was a kid, but unfortunately that just seems to be an unavoidable side effect of a growing city.

Again though, I ain't Sikh, and I don't wear a turban. I'm reasonably certain some yobbos that don't know any better will accuse your partner of engineering the September 11 incidents or something equally idiotic. That will probably be more of a reflection on society in general than Cork in particular though. I reckon research will be your best approach - you've started already obviously - particularly picking the right neighbourhood and finding out where to go and where to avoid. We all have to do that, you might just have to work to a different map.

Good luck!

adam

questions101

Adam - thank you for your reply and I apologise for the title - I blame the rush of caffeen and typing as though I have ham fists for it...;)

Sounds like pretty much everywhere else. I have indeed started checking the places in Cork and with other memebers in the company researching. Will be travelling into Cork in the near future to check out the new premises. Should be good to investigate first hand (at least for a few days) how the city is.

My partner and I are pretty easy going so racist jokes are not something that will be worring us .

Once again thank you for your views on the city. I must admit I think I am more willing to move over after some reading of this site as well as others and will definatly know once I visit.

Edit(s): typing too fast = baddddd!

dahamsta

What kind of business is it, out of curiousity?

Fysh

To chip in my two cents; regarding violence in particular I've always found the stories/warnings about violence in the city to outnumber the actual incidences of violence that I've seen. I couldn't begin to count the number of times I've found myself on the outside of a number of pints of beer and thus not at my sharpest, and yet able to happily find my way home (often including a few dark alleys) without being attacked. (That said, I'm another one of those white fellas so not sure how useful this is to you.)

Regarding the racism, I'm not so sure. I've found more racism (particularly of the "I'm not racist but *blatantly racist statement*" type) here than I did in 3 years in the UK, but then again I've been more aware of it here as people assumed (incorrectly, due to me having an odd accent) that I was English and got cranky about it. Again it depends on the area. I would say though, if you're moving from England there's a certain part of the population that seems to feel entitled to hate/mock/criticise you for being English (or even just appearing English in some cases) and you won't get away from that anywhere in Ireland, so it's something to be aware of.

morgana

Not being Irish myself and having lived in Cork City for many years (just recently moved to de country), I always found Cork very welcoming and much more cosmopolitan than, say, Dublin, (where I lived for a year many many many moons ago). Much harder to cope with I found the northside Cork accent which still gives me the occasional trouble after so many years :-) - now I am working on the North Cork one ;-). I also found people are quite nice to "foreigners" and at at least I got a lot of leeway as I was not from here :-). Securitywse, as a woman, I've always felt very safe here, much more so than in Germany where unfriendly cat-calls etc. are the order of the day. You'll get that here too but I've never found it threatening the same way I did in Germany.
There has been a nastier streak emerging in recent years if you go by the press reports. Still, it doesn't feel bad or dangerous to be out in Cork City at night ... just the usual assortment of drunken eejits ..

LilMrsDahamsta

While a lot of the above discuss the very centre of the city, relatively few people actually live there - the vast majority of Corkonians are suburban-dwellers. If you are planning on moving to Cork and are concerned by racism issues, I would advise living somewhere in the western suburbs, in reasonable proximity to Cork University Hospital. I work there myself (well, sort of), and lived in the area for some time. It is by far the most ethnically mixed area of the city, and perhaps the most racially tolerant by virtue of this. The property prices/rents are also in line with the incomes of the medical professions who populate the area, so you are less likely to be lobbed into the penniless-asylum-seekers bracket by the local populous and those in receipt of correspondence from you. The schools and access to services in the area are also excellent, but I would not attempt to rely solely on the public transport (though this applies to anywhere in Cork to be honest).

However, like the previous posters, I am stereotypically Irish in appearance, so any and all of the above should be treated as speculation rather than fact. Good luck!

questions101

Firstly, thank you all for the replies and also who ever corrected my meat fisted typed title .

dahamsta - the company, I have to keep hush hush at the moment, but its a technology based company. But more info on that once it’s public.

morgana - I was hoping it was like this. It seems as long as we are contributing to the community as a whole, we don't have too many problems.

The area I am currently looking at are near Blackpool Park, Dublin Hill (hope that’s right) as well as some others - still investigating .

dahamsta

I'm a technology based person with a data center, some secrets are better shared.

daveirl

This post has been deleted.

questions101

dahamsta wrote:

I'm a technology based person with a data center, some secrets are better shared.

Heh! But I should refrain for now :P

daveirl - I think someone was told the location (a taxi driver) when they last visited the place. But hadn't got around to checking it out.

Will see what else I can find.

Thank you all once again.

Illkillya

Cork City is very safe in my opinion. You will occasionally encounter dodgy people late at night, but during the day you should not expect to meet with any racism or aggression.

In general, racism is not an issue. Your colleagues at work will not be racist towards you, the shopkeepers and bus drivers won't be (well maybe the odd time you will notice subtle disrespect), etc. The only danger is the scumbags who congregate looking for trouble. This is not as common as it is in other cities, but unfortunately Blackpool/Dublin Hill sees more than its quota of anti-social behaviour, relative to other parts of the city.

It should definitely not deter you from moving to Cork though, since it is safer than other cities in Ireland and UK.

Balmed Out

she'll probably encounter more curiosity (possibly staring) then racism. Foriegn friends i have never get hassle. Best thing is go on a weekend away here first.

rebs23

Generally speaking Cork has probably a better reputation and history of integration and multiculturism than almost anywhere else in Ireland. Going back centuries ago the City became a refuge from religious persecution for the likes of the Hugenouts and the Quakers.

Because of its history of food exports to the British Empire and being the major supply port to the colonies it has always had a lot of people moving through the harbour from different countries and a fair amount of people staying here. The city up until the early 1930's had a significant Jewish population. Some of that Jewish population fled Limerick after the pogroms there to settle in Cork and one of them became a Jewish Lord Mayor in the 1970's (i think) of the city.

West Cork also has a long history of hippies settling there from continental Europe.

We also have a very prominent GAA (Hurling and Football Irelands national games) player that is from Fiji who is very popular locally and plays on the Cork team. Of course recently the city has become much more cosmopolitan (if that is the right description) with a lot of immigrants from Africa, Eastern Europe, etc. In the 2002 census over 10% of the city's population was born outside of Ireland, the second highest percentage in the country after Dublin (11%).

So really I wouldn't worry about your skin colour as a reason for moving here. Having said all that everyplace will have its idiots and morons but if I were you the main concern I would have moving here is the price of houses.

questions101

Sounds good . Now need to locate more details about places to stay. Thank you everyone for your input, it was good reading and helped a lot.

to all of you wonderful people.