Moving to Cork - Your opinions needed on Southside.

Cerebralj

Hi there, I'm moving to Cork for my new job and I'm thinking about Douglas, Grange and Donnybrook as options (206/207 buses to city centre). What are your opinions on these areas? mainly Donnybrook. Thanks lads.

Saipanne

Cerebralj wrote: »

Hi there, I'm moving to Cork for my new job and I'm thinking about Douglas, Grange and Donnybrook as options (206/207 buses to city centre). What are your opinions on these areas? mainly Donnybrook. Thanks lads.

I wouldn't rely on buses in Cork, if possible.

Missyelliot2

The traffic in Douglas can be pretty bad, especially at peak times. If you could live on the city side of Douglas, it would be less stressful...traffic wise

Cerebralj

I hear the usual, to/from school/work is quite bad there. Just wondering from a living point of view. is it a nice place? friendly and safe?

pwurple

Yes it is safe. Donnybrook is a newish area... Rather than an older area like turners cross or Ballinlough. Younger people tend to keep to themselves rather than talking to their neighbours, so I wouldn't call it friendly. But it's not unfriendly either!

Wouldn't be much in the line of shops or restaurants or interesting buildings there, mainly acres of housing estates.

Douglas village itself would be better for that kind of thing than Donnybrook.

Milly33

Buses in Cork are rubbish I must say, unless your on a peak line that is popular.. Donnybrook gets chocker block with traffic so if you wanted to avoid Id say Douglas rather than Grange or Donnybrook

batnolan

Donnybrook has the 207 but depending on how far you live up the hill, you could get the 206 which runs every 15 minutes. It is a decent enough service, not sure what the bus can do about traffic?

Decent enough area to live all around

Pablo Escobar

What I find is generally the people giving out about the bus service are the people that tend not to use it. I rarely have issues when using buses in Cork. Buses are frequent. This is particularly true in Douglas which is served by the 206, 207, 216, 219, 220, 223.

hoodwinked

Cerebralj wrote: »

I hear the usual, to/from school/work is quite bad there. Just wondering from a living point of view. is it a nice place? friendly and safe?

depends on your view of "nice" as mentioned it is acres's of houses after houses (with a few apartment blocks thrown in) there is one shop (the maxol petrol station) and a few businesses on the hill itself, there is an old industrial estate witha gym and other businesses in there across from the garage.

friendly and safe? it really depends, it has got it's problems, like most places i suppose, but it has gotten noticeably rougher in the most recent years, children shouting abuse at pensioners, hopping sliotars off the cars/house windows of residents, out until all hours of the night, graffiti becoming more visible, a few break in's...etc are recent complaints of a few people i know living in the area. its not so rough that you couldn't walk around there at night, no assaults/murders or anything like that. different estates up there have different problems. it's a funny mix of normal decent people, people pretending to be posh and troublemakers.

it's also next to the "Mangla" walk way to Douglas which has it's own anti social problems. (teenagers drink there...etc)

most of the estates are nearing 50 years old, so you have a good mix of pensioners/young families/single people.


as mentioned traffic on the donnybrook hill coming down from grange/donnybrook can be completely blocked by 8am, but plans are coming into place to alleviate this traffic congestion. And it's not so bad, many of the residents up there still make it into work/school on time.


Amenities wise it has everything douglas has, considering it's a 5 minute drive up the hill (pending traffic) there are three shopping centers (if you count the east village as one), a cinema, a swimming pool, two hotels, a million restaurants (it really does feel that way with all the take outs/sit in restaurants we have in douglas), banks (ptsb/ulster bank/aib/bank of ireland), Tesco, Dunnes, Supervalu (in grange), Aldi (in grange)...etc

who_me

Maybe repeating what's already been said above.. Douglas is probably the best place in the city - outside the city centre - for amenities/shops/restaurants. The area between Douglas and the city is more mature houses/gardens, whereas on the "country" side lots of lots of new estates were built with relatively few shops/restaurants/bars within a short walking distance. Most of the traffic from these areas has to funnel through Douglas too, hence why people recommend living on the city side of Douglas. If you can travel outside busy hours, it's not an issue (I live in the centre and work in Douglas, and have no issues with traffic bar the school collection times).

As for the buses, I regularly get the 206, 207 and 216 to/from Douglas and find them fine, perhaps they're less punctual during peak hours, I don't know.

Dave147

I live in Wilton and find this is much handier than Douglas, buses are usually relatively on time and don't take long to get into the city.