Why is Dublin such a shιtty city?

John_Rambo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118471393#Comment_118471393

Nope, nobody said just keep building Dublin bigger and bigger, just you. Most people agree that Dublin needs massive investment and improvement... again, I'll repeat... the city needs a metro police force and the country needs a transport police force.

Anyway, I think you're fairly much on your own regarding moving the capital. Stupid post.

corner of hells

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118471924#Comment_118471924

You sound like you've got PTSD .

LeeroyJ.

Dublin is a beautiful city with all the features that a major city should have. It suffers from littering, questionable planning and a lack of ambition, though. This thread is a great example of why Dublin often feels like it's neglected by planners https://twitter.com/DaraghCassidy/status/1444426775124119556

John_Rambo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118472296#Comment_118472296

He reckons Dublin was a bigger culture shock than India? I seriously doubt he's been to one of the big Indian cities.

OEP

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118472316#Comment_118472316

Yes, and I wouldn't even go as far as to say it's a beautiful city - but it's a fun, lively city with a good atmosphere and good food. Not a cultural hub of other European cities but that's mostly down to the history of this country. Poor planning has really let it down, like most of this country. And at the moment it has become prohibitively expensive. Dublin was in sweet spot from about 2014 to 2019 (for me, I've lived here since 2008) - things had come out of the recession gloom and had reinvented itself away from the tackier elements of the Celtic Tiger, the food and bar scene was thriving, people had money again and things had not gotten too expensive.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118472332#Comment_118472332

Oh I have been.

The thing about India is that you expect it to be different. I didn’t expect Dublin, the capital city of my country, to be so different from the rest of Ireland. That was the shock. It didn’t feel remotely like the rest of Ireland to me.

Sounds like you’ve got PTSD.

Worst three years of my life. Catching the 40 bus each morning outside Glasnevin Cemetery, often with crematorium smells and petrol fumes in the air, looking across at the scum bags in the estate opposite, who once launched a firework horizontally at me and a few others who were waiting there. Cycling up the grey, windswept, leafless and featureless Whitworth Road each Saturday and Sunday morning. Plodding up to Tesco in the repulsive Phibsboro shopping center. Walking from Busaras up to Parnell Square on a winters night the odd time I’d return after a rare weekend home. Pure misery. Peig had it easy.

John_Rambo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118472724#Comment_118472724

• Did you do nothing nice in the city? Your choice to be honest so tough.
• Should have done the cemetery tour. It's amazing
• Should have gone to the botanic gardens.
• Read Peig again. You'll find you had it easy, you just made a misery of it cause you were homesick.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118474090#Comment_118474090

I lived there for three years, of course I went to the Bots and did the various tours and experiences across the city. Even saw the medieval bodies of the nun and crusader in the coffins of that church before some loon wrecked them.

I never said there was nothing to do. I said I hated living there. Big difference. I wasn’t homesick by the way.

John_Rambo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118474225#Comment_118474225

Did you live in Phibsborough for three years as a young man? It's a cracking place to live for a singleton. I know plenty that lived there and had an absolute ball. Sounds like you were a homesick Frank McCourt.

Thelonious Monk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118474225#Comment_118474225

I think it's just in the blood of many of you rural folk to just utterly despise Dublin and people from Dublin, I don't think there's any point trying to convince you Dublin isn't so bad.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118472724#Comment_118472724

That does sounds bleak. But Dublin is big. Those areas are a big distance from my experience growing up on the south side.

I do agree re "Leafless" though. Dublin needs more trees. All the best urban streets have trees. Yes it needs a bit of maintenance. So come up a tree tax of a euro per month per person. Most people wouldn't mind.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118474671#Comment_118474671

I’m originally from the West. I’ve lived in Dublin intermittently since I was 17, over twenty years ago. I like Dublin and have had some incredible times here. I like Dubliners and I feel that they are less judgmental than people from the rest of the country.

However, I will point out that many of those ‘rural folk’ have lived abroad in cities they believe to be superior to Dublin. I don’t agree with them, but they do have a frame of reference. These are not the toothless yokels that your characterization implies. They are entitled to their opinion, no matter how misguided you (and I) believe it to be.

I do agree that the incessant whining about Dublin is not only inaccurate, but incredibly tiresome.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118474320#Comment_118474320

Have to say that I’ve never been a fan of Phibsborough and never had any desire to live there. Having said that, I’ve enjoyed many a late night session in ‘McGowans’!

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118474320#Comment_118474320

I lived in that general area from age 18-21 back around 1999-2002. I was doing a course and was by far the youngest student. That didn’t help.

I’ve since lived very happily in Cork, Madrid, Nuremberg, (not so happily in Mumbai) and Dubai. My work has also caused me to spend significant time in Cincinnati, Tokyo, and Bratislava. I’ve lived in cities for most of my life at this stage despite rustic beginnings. Sick for the fields of home I was not. And I have something to compare Dublin to.

JupiterKid

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118472724#Comment_118472724

You should write a book on your miserable Dublin experiences - it could be titled “Country Boy Lost in Dirty Dublin: Tomalak’s Trauma” 😁😜

Could be a bestseller...

In my 17 years on Boards, a lot of things have changed over the years - but one thing that stays the same is a hatred of Dublin by many country people. It’s the same in other countries all around the world - a love/hate relationship with their capital cities. Dublin has many serious, deep-seated problems as I opined earlier in this thread - but many in here perceive the city to be some sort of complete hellhole which it is not.

In the UK, many Brits who hark from the North of England/West Country/Wales/Scotland/Midlands despise London and Londoners, for example.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118474671#Comment_118474671

Not in my blood. I said I got a shock. I got a shock because I was expecting to like my country’s capital, and my uncle, who is just a few years older than me, liked the place and had me excited about moving there. I fully expected to like it too.

Allinall

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118475111#Comment_118475111

How did your uncle get it so wrong?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118474836#Comment_118474836

I liked the Gravediggers and had many a great carvery in Tolka House and Dollymount something or other on a Sunday. Used to enjoy a chat with the proprietor of Fortes Chipper (gone at this stage I think) at the top of the Whitworth Road too. But Phibsborough and the Finglas Road area in general was a soul destroying concrete dystopia for 19 year old me.

FlubberJones

Lived in a few rural areas in the UK then a few in Ireland which were terrible and just misery... Eventually moved to Dublin and in honesty I think its just fine. I dont live directly in the city centre, its a good few LUAS stops out but very often on a weekend we jump into the smoke and have a day out.

Yep, there are issues and in fairness I get depressed seeing the homeless struggling in the evenings but I can't fix that... And the gangs of dickheads wandering around in the grey tracksuits, they're in every city these days.

I'll take a trip into the centre and enjoy it, I like the place and 100% don't look at it with green tinted glasses being from the UK

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118475097#Comment_118475097

Thanks for that. You made me chuckle, J :-)

I do truly think that I carry some sort of trauma over my time in Dublin. And it wasn’t me. It was me in that physical place.

Even today, twenty years later, I feel very uncomfortable in Dublin and I wouldn’t dream of going near my old stomping grounds. I just looked them all up on Streetview and it brought it all back. Good lord.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118475121#Comment_118475121

Each to his own. He lives there to this day.

Thelonious Monk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118475097#Comment_118475097

Lived in London for years. Anyone I knew from other parts of England loves it, everyone loves London, it's an amazing city.

saabsaab

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118472274#Comment_118472274

If there isn't anything done Dublin will keep getting bigger and bigger and more unmanageable that's a fact. I'm not saying it doesn't need improvement and I ran a thread a while back and most were not in favour of Dublin as the 'new' Capital of Ireland (even if it had the higest score of the candidates given).

John_Rambo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118475121#Comment_118475121

He got it right. Open mind and positive attitude.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118475354#Comment_118475354

Dublin is the capital. Nobody wants to spent trillions making another one, won't happen, get over it, move on, build a bridge.

corner of hells

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118475354#Comment_118475354

I love when somebody says "that's a fact " in a thread.

saabsaab

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118475643#Comment_118475643

Me too. Pretty sure I'm right here. Do you think Belfast will want to be second fiddle to Dublin under a UI?

corner of hells

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118475709#Comment_118475709

No , I'd say they'd prefer Roscommon or Athy ,thats a fact.

Wibbs

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118475097#Comment_118475097

In my 17 years on Boards, a lot of things have changed over the years - but one thing that stays the same is a hatred of Dublin by many country people. It’s the same in other countries all around the world - a love/hate relationship with their capital cities.

Yep. Dubs and extroverts. The hate is strong. An extroverted Dubliner would have some rocking back and forth in their chairs.😂 Haven't been back on the thread for a while and it's still the same. Bogger's gonna bog. And before some of the up for de match brigade have an oul conniption over the term, it's only applicable to a deeply insecure minority of non Dubliners(and an even sadder minority bunch of Dubliners). A loud minority mind you. And while I've heard similar from some overseas towards their 'townies' I've personally rarely encountered it to the degree Dublin gets it.

It's long been the case. If anything I'd say it's eased off. The old Union Jackeens behind the Pale kowtowing to 'De Brits' is a large part of it. Though when the queen of England showed up here she was whisked at high speed through Dublin streets far away from the locals, but got a walkabout in Cork. Another part of it is while urban centres got a few quid down the centuries rural areas were often appallingly underfunded and ignored and seen as a primitive backwater because of the same English rule.

Since independence again Dublin tended to get a lot of investment and it grew rapidly, ironically because of a mass influx into the city by people from the countryside. The percentage of 'pure' Dubs is low enough these days. Which in turn meant more investment because of the population growth. Badly managed population growth and unbelieveably retarded urban planning, or lack of it.

As you said the city does have some serious problems that are long overdue a solution, but the hellhole it is pictured as is beyond daft, unless you're one of those well balanced chip on both shoulders boggers I referenced previously. If Dublin turned into the greatest city on earth tomorrow, they'd still be whinging about something. The appalling accents no doubt. That seems to rile them up something fierce. It's not as if there aren't a few rural accents that make the speaker sound like they were dropped on their heads as a baby.

.

saabsaab

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118475723#Comment_118475723

Ah now!