Nicest towns/villages in Ireland?

Tim76

Bass Reeves wrote: »

Another contender is Hyde Road in Limerick city. Some nice area's around there

Hyde Road would make some of the slums in The Wire seem palatial.

Snow Garden

Cong
Roundstone

ILoveYourVibes

My town.

Sgt Hartman

Castleconnell in Co.Limerick is quite nice. Lovely walks along the River Shannon there.

Malahide, Dalkey and Howth are beautiful too, if only I won the Euromillions I'd buy property in all 3 of those villages.

pauliebdub

Ballycotton is always a favourite of mine. Locally Malahide is a lovely town.

retalivity

Finty Lemon wrote: »

Adare on many peoples list of nicest towns
Rathkeale top of many peoples worst towns

Yet only 12km apart
Never been to either, what makes the difference?

One has an abundance of culture.
The other has an abundance of "culture".

Snow Garden

Finty Lemon wrote: »

Adare on many peoples list of nicest towns

Is Adare not always choked with traffic?

Jamie2k9

Dungarvan, Co. Waterford, is a great spot. Good for outdoor activities, shops and reasonable employment opportunities and close to Cork/Waterford.

Thelonious Monk

smelly sock wrote: »

Are middle class and working class allowed in Dalkey?

Yes, although prob not as prevalent as they once where. I spent a lot of time there as a kid as had aunt uncle and cousins there. My uncle grew up there at a time when there were working class people there, and bought a fixer upper on Coliemore Rd., he is a painter decorator. Sold it during the boom and bought a smaller place nearby but made a fortune. They all have stronger Dublin accents than I do too.
It really is a beautiful place, I doubt there's any area in Ireland as nice.

JohnnyFlash

Thelonious Monk wrote: »

Yes, although prob not as prevalent as they once where. I spent a lot of time there as a kid as had aunt uncle and cousins there. My uncle grew up there at a time when there were working class people there, and bought a fixer upper on Coliemore Rd., he is a painter decorator. Sold it during the boom and bought a smaller place nearby but made a fortune.
It really is a beautiful place, I doubt there's any area in Ireland as nice.

All the coastal villages in Dublin are nice tbh. Even Ringsend has its charms.

Thelonious Monk

Sgt Hartman wrote: »

Castleconnell in Co.Limerick is quite nice. Lovely walks along the River Shannon there.

Malahide, Dalkey and Howth are beautiful too, if only I won the Euromillions I'd buy property in all 3 of those villages.

I think Howth is just absolutely ruined by the amount of cars that are rammed in there, it's like a giant car park nowadays. I don't really know what the solution is but I would never dream of driving to Howth on a nice day, bicycle or Dart is your only man.

Rows Grower

Snow Garden wrote: »

Is Adare not always choked with traffic?

It sure is, although like everywhere else it's probably very quite lately.

To be fair it is a beautiful town that just badly needs a bypass, it has two golf courses, one the best hotels in the world and another hotel, lots of heritage and a river runs through it that not only gets a run of salmon but is one of the best brown trout rivers in Ireland.

Thelonious Monk

Dunmore East is very nice

armaghlad

Rathmullan
Portsalon
Killough
Portstewart
Carlingford
Schull
Dingle

CrankyHaus

JohnnyFlash wrote: »

All the coastal villages in Dublin are nice tbh. Even Ringsend has its charms.

Balbriggan?

JohnnyFlash

CrankyHaus wrote: »

Balbriggan?

I meant within the city. Dalkey, Monsktown, Sandymount, Raheny, Sutton etc.

Thelonious Monk

I have a friend that lives in Balbriggan and go there sometimes. The centre isn't that bad, it really has potential. With the amount of new developments out there I think it might turn out half decent sooner or later, parts of the old centre are quite nice.

All that fandango

Blackrock and Dun Laoighre.

RandomViewer

Dunlewey County Donegal

Sgt Hartman

Thelonious Monk wrote: »

I think Howth is just absolutely ruined by the amount of cars that are rammed in there, it's like a giant car park nowadays. I don't really know what the solution is but I would never dream of driving to Howth on a nice day, bicycle or Dart is your only man.

A cycle to Howth via Clontarf is really nice. You're right about the cars though, the main road is a hazard to cross at the best of times. It's jammed full of people on sunny days also. On the good side though there are some nice shops and a great butcher there. The walking trails are amazing also and The Bloody Stream do a lovely seafood pie and pint of Guinness.

Sgt Hartman

Thelonious Monk wrote: »

I have a friend that lives in Balbriggan and go there sometimes. The centre isn't that bad, it really has potential. With the amount of new developments out there I think it might turn out half decent sooner or later, parts of the old centre are quite nice.

The centre does have some good things going for it. I love Molly's Coffee shop, I'm really missing it at the moment with the lockdown. Libero's, Deli Burger, Moti Mahal, The Bracken Court and The Harvest are really good food spots also. Papagellino's Ice cream parlour is a good spot. The walk from Balbriggan beach to Gormanstown via the Martello tower and the Bremore passage tombs is a huge favourite of mine.
On the bad side though you have De Brún's, The White Hart and the old Tesco boarded up and rotting away at the moment. With some investment and development those areas have a lot of potential.

Jammyd

Surprised it hasn't been already listed but Kinvara in County Galway is a serious contender (one of the most photographed villages in the country for sure) not including Dunguire Castle at the entrance to the town

hi5

barney shamrock wrote: »

Thomastown Co Kilkenny is a picturesque little place

Inistioge is also very nice.

mariaalice

Greystones

Muahahaha

Igotadose wrote: »

Dingle tries to have some damn festival every weekend year round, certainly no less than monthly even in Winter. It's fairly run down and lots of wandering dogs so you need to step lively most of the time. It fails to make the tidy towns list pretty regularly. Just too much tourist traffic to keep it clean. The restaurants pre-Lockdown were nondescript at best, usual boring tourist restaurant food. One outlier was Idas, but it's closed. And the restaurant prices are crazy.

There's also very little to do in town - take a boat to see the local tame dolphin? It's not pretty like Adare with well kept historical 'stuff.' It's an old fishing town where they've put lipstick on the pig and opened up lots of tourist stuff. You can take a bus tour around Slea Head, which is pretty, and maybe to Gallarus Oratory, is about it.

Yeah Dingle can be choked with traffic, I was there around this time last year and even in April we faced a couple of traffic jams, Id fear what July would be like with campervans all over the place. The drive out to Slea Head is nice though but its pretty short and easily done in a couple of hours.

Agree with the restaurants in Dingle too, value for money is completely out the window there. We had a good walk around scouting of menus and you'd only find one starter on them under ten euro (inevitably soup for 8 or 9 euro that you dont want in summer anyway) and all the mains were 20 euro and upwards. Irish stew for 22 euro was a like some kind of sick joke, they've somehow made peasant food cost an arm and a leg.

wildwillow

Straffan is a lovely village, close enough to Dublin, but rural. Very friendly folk there.

Rows Grower

Muahahaha wrote: »

Yeah Dingle can be choked with traffic, I was there around this time last year and even in April we faced a couple of traffic jams, Id fear what July would be like with campervans all over the place. The drive out to Slea Head is nice though but its pretty short and easily done in a couple of hours.

Agree with the restaurants in Dingle too, value for money is completely out the window there. We had a good walk around scouting of menus and you'd only find one starter on them under ten euro (inevitably soup for 8 or 9 euro that you dont want in summer anyway) and all the mains were 20 euro and upwards. Irish stew for 22 euro was a like some kind of sick joke, they've somehow made peasant food cost an arm and a leg.

There's a place in Kenmare that was charging 24 euro for beef and Guinness stew, places like that will have a handy landing coming to them when things open up again.

In fairness to Kenmare there are places near to that particular establishment that were doing a choice of 7 or 8 main courses for half that price, these are the places that have a good chance of surviving the impending doom and deserve to be supported.

wildwillow

wildwillow wrote: »

Straffan is a lovely village, close enough to Dublin, but rural. Very friendly folk there.

You need the big wallet to be let inside the 50 limit signs.

JeffreyEpspeen

Westport was pretty nice.

Newry had a lot of thicc girls.

I'm trying to think of nice towns and I'm coming up pretty empty.

Bray was alright as well.

RandomViewer

Technically neither a town or a village, Gweedore