Barna or Moycullen?

mefein

Hello everyone,

Hoping to get some advice here. Myself, my husband and three children are currently renting a house in Knocknacarra in Galway at the moment. We were lucky enough to sell our 3 bed semi a year and a half ago. We are hoping to buy a house next year but have no clue where to buy. We like Knocknacarra but there is very little that ticks our boxes for sale around there, and the prices are still quite high. So in order to get the space and garden that we like we are thinking Barna or Moycullen and would love to get some feedback on what these places are like to raise a family? We both work in the Ballybrit area so commute needs to be considered but the overriding factor would be schools, community etc.

Thanks in advance for your help!

Sponge Bob

Much of a muchness bar one is near sea and one not....and Moycullen is a tad cheaper.

Also look at Maree near Oranmore seeing as Galway will be gridlocked until about 2027 absent a bypass....unless we do something serious about running Green and An Taisce sociopaths out of town. At least Oranmore has a secondary school.

biko

If you both work in Ballybrit then that would rule out Barna for me.
Moycullen or even Oranmore would be better for the commute.
Oran would be a more suited suburb than Moy imo.

galah

Commutes from either Barna or Moycullen can be a pain - depending on your starting and finishing times. Barna is that little bit closer to town (at least it feels that way?!) and you're near the sea. Prices in Barna have come down a good bit, at least for the estate-type settlements - but here you won't have a large garden to speak of. One-off houses are still fairly expensive, depending on what you want ;-)

I think there's at least a fairly regular public transport connection into town from Barna (that red bus?), not sure about Moycullen.

I'd say look at both, amenity-wise they're probably about the same.

Or move to Oranmore, as others have suggested - although that commute, albeit shorter, can also be brutal in the mornings.

Mrs OBumble

galah wrote: »

I think there's at least a fairly regular public transport connection into town from Barna (that red bus?), not sure about Moycullen.

Yes, there is a City Direct service, but it's not a great. BE's buses from Spiddal et al also stop there. And it's about 30-40 minutes walk from the furherest-west BE city buses stop.

Barna parish is good if you're into being involved with church.

Not sure that there are many other community facilities there though. Barna neighbourhood / public transport map, fyi. And Mr justMary isn't keen on the pubs there (for reasons that I don't understand).

Don't know so much about Moycullen.


Overall though ... work in Ballybrit, and live in the west of the city. Are ye mad??? Oranmore. Athenry. A zillion other villages in that side of the county. (Ok, maybe only dozens.)

Remember, as your kids get older, they will want to socialise more and more with friends from school at the weekends. No secondary schools in Barna, AFAIK. You could spend a LOT of time driving them places.

mefein

Thanks for the feedback!
We considered Oranmore at one point alright but grandparents whom we see quite alot are in Salthill so decided against it in the end.
Perhaps we'll take another look.......

irisheddie85

Just an idea but since ye are renting at the minute ye could try renting in one of the areas ye are interested in. Rent will probably be cheaper than in Knocknacarra, so you may save some money towards buying and you will get to know the area. It doesnt look like prices are going to go up anytime soon (probably go down more) so I wouldn't rush in to anything

Malice

I vote for Barna but then I am biased as I live there .

Now where's Robbo to back me up?