What is Neilstown like?

necromundia

Happy Monday folks,

How are ye keeping on this fine day? I'm currently checking out property to buy in the Clondalkin area. What are your impressions of Neilstown as a place to live?

Thanks for your opinion.

Birneybau

Didn't have a great reputation but no idea these days.

Rakish Paddy

It wouldn't exactly be the nicest of places. It might be OK if you're buying to let, but I certainly wouldn't live there myself. Also, Finches pub is among the capital's dodgiest places to drink.

If I'm checking out a potential area to live, I usually try a Google search like "neilstown" "defendant" or "neilstown" "Gardaí" and see what kind of results show up.

It also made the cut in the Independent for a short list of spots plagued by organised crime and general scumbaggery:
http://www.independent.ie/news/irelands-estates-from-hell-30765834.html

Confucius say

It's probably one of the biggest dives in Ireland. Avoid if you can.

arybvtcw0eolkf

Best viewed from a helicopter gunship IMO.

r93kaey5p2izun

I'm from Neilstown. Don't buy there and don't live there if you have any other options. There's good and bad there of course - some of the greatest community workers you'll ever meet and plenty of great families too. But its reputation as a socioeconomic black hole plagued with antisocial behaviour and serious crime is well deserved.

Cienciano

Google image or youtube search it. Gives you a good idea

tomwaits48

i'm from the area.....avoid like the plague.

Canadel

Looks like it's a Níl for Neilstown.

uck51js9zml2yt

Even Garda dogs go into the area in pairs!

fleet_admiral

One of the roughest parts of south Dublin. If you see a dog with a tail its a tourist

dsmythy

Usually at least one person defends an area on boards. Says it all about Neilstown.

K.Flyer

I lived very close to Neilstown for a number of years and passed through it often enough.
Its a reminder of the really bad housing planning attitude of years gone by.
Acres and acres of houses on the outskirts of Dublin with little to no amenities and forgotton by society in general. A breeding ground of trouble for the disenfranchised youth with absolutely nothing to do and little or no job prospects.
Drugs, Robbery, Assaults, Joy Riding and Guns with the odd Murder would be the norm, so much so that the Garda helicopter spends most of its time over Neilstown and the surrounding area.

r93kaey5p2izun

Yes, the odd murder cannot be ignored. If you include the length of the Neilstown Road and the housing estates surrounding it (so Neilstown, Rowlagh, Quarryvale rather than just strictly Neilstown - but still a very small area) then off the top of my head I can think of six murders and two shootings resulting in serious permanent injury in the past 8/9 years alone. If you were to stretch it slightly to include Balgaddy a short walk away you could add in another two murders.

Honestly, avoid at all costs.

wush06

I think a lot of these replys are a bit harsh been living in the area a long time and never had a problem.
These days don't think you can say any part of Dublin is safe.

And for finches one of the best pubs around great beer no slop like some places great music and the food on Sunday is ok..

Richard Hillman

You can always judge an area by the inability to drive a car onto greenspace. It it has oversized curbs, you know they have a problem with joyriding.

Confucius say

Don't worry, local TD Gino Kenny got a seat in the dail, he'll surely fix everything

esforum

wush06 wrote: »

I think a lot of these replys are a bit harsh been living in the area a long time and never had a problem.
These days don't think you can say any part of Dublin is safe.

And for finches one of the best pubs around great beer no slop like some places great music and the food on Sunday is ok..

wow :eek:

arybvtcw0eolkf

wush06 wrote: »

And for finches one of the best pubs around great beer no slop like some places great music and the food on Sunday is ok..

BWAHAHAHAHAHA

ongarboy

One of my assessment factors for rating an area recently is that if it's a 3 bed house (semi-d/terraced) etc and is featured on Daft or myhome.ie for under 150K in Dublin then the area is considered fairly dodgy. The usual suspect anti social corporation home dominance neighbourhoods keep cropping up in the returned results. It's just an unfortunate fact I'm afraid.

jon1981

It's rife with anti-social problems, steer clear. Those that say "it's grand" were likely born and raised there and so the local scum are happy to ignore them and focus their terror efforts on the blow ins...

Another good use of Google:

Type in "Neilstown Dublin" ,then pause and wait for the next word to appear, which is usually the most commonly associated word people Google search. In this example I got:

Joyriders.

r93kaey5p2izun

As I said, the area is dodgy with lots of problems and I recommend to avoid if possible, but I have to say that Finches really isn't anything like people seem to think it is. It's certainly not a place most would choose for a relaxing drink in a pleasant atmosphere, but people's idea of it as some sort of violent hellhole you'd be lucky to walk out of alive is way off. It's grand really, just depressingly dingy. It's definitely nowhere up the list of dodgy or dangerous pubs. It's not the local pub of choice for that sort at all.

esforum

http://irishtaxi.org/forum/index.php?topic=13992.40;wap2

http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/news/feud-fears-as-man-runs-into-busy-pub-after-being-shot-at-34123949.html

http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/victim-shot-11-times-as-he-lay-dying-on-ground-29525699.html

i cant find 3 such links for any of my local boozers

uck51js9zml2yt

No word from the OP...wonder did he/she go up to have a look around and will never be seen again on boards....RIP

Hannibal

Confucius say wrote: »

Don't worry, local TD Gino Kenny got a seat in the dail, he'll surely fix everything

He looked like he walked into the Dail after sleeping on the street.
I'm all for politicians dressing down and being men of the people in the sense that they don't have to be suited the tie but some of them can take the p**s.

He made Wallace look well dressed.

I'm sure with Gino Kenny in the Dail and Kenny Egan in the Council the area will be well represented.

sandra06

lived there yrs ago ,my ex inlaws owned a house in the private area bit ,they used to drive to church one sunday they parked in the church grounds beside the pub and the priest announced halfway through sermon that a car was been robbed turns out it was there car ,another time there daughter was visiting from england she was driving a company car one morning she comes out her alloys are gone from car but in fairness the guys who robbed then put 4 different wheels on car must have taken then hours to change all the wheels

Faith+1

Jesus I l've lived in Dublin all my life and never been to Neilstown, it must be bad judging by the comments.

K.Flyer

sandra06 wrote: »

...
one morning she comes out her alloys are gone from car but in fairness the guys who robbed then put 4 different wheels on car must have taken then hours to change all the wheels

One trolly jack and a cordless pneumatic drill will have all four wheels changed in under 30 mins, even allowing for security nuts.

Quandary

I recently spent almost 3 years working very very close to Neilstown and it can be a fairly intimidating place to walk through. Never had any seriously bad experience personally speaking apart from scumbags shouting a bit of abuse, but most of the people I worked with had little or no nice things to say about the place. The place seems to get destroyed from time to time with litter scattered everywhere which doesn't help. Antisocial behaviour is common and there were often young kids driving up on footpaths with mini scrambler motorbikes.

The noise of kids ripping around on those bikes along with constant noise from Garda helicopters would be enough to put me off living there.

I finished my work there last year though so maybe the place has improved a bit since then.

Canadel

K.Flyer wrote: »

One trolly jack and a cordless pneumatic drill will have all four wheels changed in under 30 mins, even allowing for security nuts.

I'm sure they'd give the F1 pit-stop mechanics a run for their money!

Chris_Bradley

Live near it and my brother lives in it.... He gets no trouble but we both are regular gym goers and over 6ft though lol

Honestly though, it's a kip.

dreamers75

Live in Neilstown think all the previous replies are about somewhere else?

Or am I missing something?

K.Flyer

dreamers75 wrote: »

Live in Neilstown think all the previous replies are about somewhere else?

Or am I missing something?

I know it was a few years ago, but this might jog your memory... :pac:

Your Opening Post Titled "Neilstown Tonight"

Crazy **** there/still tonight, what started as an innocent petrol bombing of a police patrol car, escalated into a 2 full scale riots.
some lad who threw something at a police car was arrested by ehh all of clondalkins garda, pretty sure they where all there. As his lovely mother screamed abuse at the garda for aressting her godlike son. After that it was quite calm but 2 garda vans came around on patrol after that and the 50 or so youths gathered tried to win vs the vans, obviously dont understand HP and AP 
Quiet now but im sure the lads in collinstown park are retarded enought to try fight the van thats facing them

Elemonator

It's been a hellhole for years. I have relatives who worked out that direction for a summer job in university 30 odd years ago and they had no good thing to say about the place, it was extremely violent in their opinion. An old acquaintance of mine is from there and he says he was glad he got out, managed to get himself a good job and leave the area for good.

This coupled with the daily overflights of the Garda helicopter should give you a general idea. I always see the Armed Support Unit jeeps there when I go shopping in Liffey Valley.

Birneybau

dreamers75 wrote: »

Live in Neilstown think all the previous replies are about somewhere else?

Or am I missing something?

Ah, there all angles.

phasers

I live in right beside Neilstown, its a kip but its not as big of a hellhole as people here are making out to be!

You don't walk down the road fearing for your life or anything, but you do run the risk of meeting a few horses or 'youths' on scrambler bikes. There are loads of areas like it all over Dublin.

There are definitely nicer places to live though OP.

Esel

K.Flyer wrote: »

I know it was a few years ago, but this might jog your memory... :pac:

Your Opening Post Titled "Neilstown Tonight"

.G.

In 40 years of living in and around Neilstown I've seen the Garda helicopter about 5 times. The lads saying it's over head on a daily basis are on a wind up. Never had an ounce of trouble in the place but there has been plenty of trouble over the years, no mistake.

Neilstown itself was really bad in the 80s though what's often missed is that it's just one estate in a much larger area and the whole place always gets labelled as Neilstown when there's trouble. Finches for example is on the Neilstown Road but not in Neilstown housing estate. Harelawn, St Marks, Liscarne, Rowlagh, Greenfort, Shancastle, Wheatfield are all estates in the area which are far worse then the actual Neilstown Estate.

dreamers75

K.Flyer wrote: »

I know it was a few years ago, but this might jog your memory... :pac:

Your Opening Post Titled "Neilstown Tonight"

Better than Tv, that was excellent entertainment.

Cienciano

superg wrote: »

In 40 years of living in and around Neilstown I've seen the Garda helicopter about 5 times. The lads saying it's over head on a daily basis are on a wind up. Never had an ounce of trouble in the place but there has been plenty of trouble over the years, no mistake.

Neilstown itself was really bad in the 80s though what's often missed is that it's just one estate in a much larger area and the whole place always gets labelled as Neilstown when there's trouble. Finches for example is on the Neilstown Road but not in Neilstown housing estate. Harelawn, St Marks, Liscarne, Rowlagh, Greenfort, Shancastle, Wheatfield are all estates in the area which are far worse then the actual Neilstown Estate.

You must have very bad hearing then. I sometimes hear it 5 times a night. Seriously

The flying mouse

Just because the helicopter is over head does not mean that that's the area its looking at, If the helicopter was up over neilstown road they could easily be looking at incidents in upper Ballyfermot around the prison, or on up the other way to balgaddy.They don't want to be to obvious in there investigations.Also with N7 and m50 very close by they could also be watching that, Criminals are known to be on the lookout for air support from garda.

SEPT 23 1989

I remember the army being called in to restore law and order after the gardai lost control one Halloween night in the late 80's

burner

I live in the Neilstown area (3 years). I'm not originally from the area but house prices brought me here. Whilst I live in a quiet private housing estate, unfortunately, the surrounding areas of Neilstown, Rowagh, St Marks and Morrefield bring problems. This is brought about by a small majority of residents who are anti social, not civic minded, criminally minded and just horrible persons. This includes their children who grow up to be obnoxious kids with criminal tendencies.

Here are some of my observations:
Persons permitting dog fowling,
Fly tipping
Driving cars in a dangerous manner
Scrambler motorbikes riden on public places causing a nuisance
Male teenagers in groups with aggressive and anti social behaviour, rare but nonetheless takes one bad experience to cause harm
Residents parking uninsured and untaxed cars in the street and abandoning these
Littering
Not keeping grass verges tidy
Shootings/murders- 4 of these since I moved to the area.
Poor air quality during haloween from bonfires
Children with anti social characteristics e.g. spitting, swearing, loitering.
No nice amenities like coffee shops or cafe etc

On the positive, it's a great location for commuting (near N4,N7 and M50), great bus services and near city centre. Liffey Valley and Clondalkin Village are near by.

The above is not limited to council estates neither and private housing estates are not always a better option. My re-call sounds awful. However, I get on with my life and the above dynamic does not impact on me overly negatively everyday/every minute, but nontheless can sometimes make for an unomfortable experience.

Despite past research and reports identifying the above areas as disadvantaged, local and national government bodies have not learned from their mistakes and do little to improve the situation. Even Collinstown Park which is a public park owned by SDCC is not listed as a park on the Council's website, thus illustrating its lack of recognition for the area.

What's needed is a council and police service with initiative and vision. This should include designing out the bad planning of the past and re plan and re-develop i.e. build a library and Garda Station near Finches pub and build a central hub (village like) that will bring pride to area. Enforce dog fowling and littering and undertake a stronger police presence.

JupiterKid

Neilstown is a rough area. Simple as that. No amount of attempted defense of the area will change that fact.