The demise of the small/medium sized Irish town

LirW · 05-05-2018 07:06PM

whisky_galore wrote: »

What is that even supposed to mean?

When we were looking to buy in a lot of smaller towns and villages you'd have a good proportion of Eastern European people. At viewings especially on low priced houses you'd see a good few Polish people. Maybe they see it quite pragmatic and go where housing is cheap. That's at least what I know from the Polish people I personally know.

whisky_galore · 08-05-2018 11:14AM

LirW wrote: »

When we were looking to buy in a lot of smaller towns and villages you'd have a good proportion of Eastern European people. At viewings especially on low priced houses you'd see a good few Polish people. Maybe they see it quite pragmatic and go where housing is cheap. That's at least what I know from the Polish people I personally know.

Not as picky as Irish I guess, not always looking for the house with garden and space for a trampoline.

whisky_galore · 08-05-2018 11:18AM

Daisy78 wrote: »

It would seem not, going by the fabulous bungalow blitz we have had to endure In this country over the last 30 odd years.

People here don't want to live in a replica traditional farmhouse or a thatched cottage and are too lazy to renovate a wreck.

08-05-2018 12:23PM

Modern life in and of itself heavily impacts how part of a community people are.. When I think back to when I was young, and there were numerous little villages and a main town that were busy, the things people got up to were just different.

Simple things like everyone driving shltty cars so you'd be out heading to the mechanic, or to get the news, you had to go get the newspapers. Where I was there was a big car culture and I doubt that's still there as much. Everyone went to mass and then visiting after.

Stranger danger is another big one, along with kids' hobbies. I knew everyone on my road when I was young, and my parents knew all the other parents because of it. They'd always be dropping me off in other villages to see my friends, but kids now are happy playing games, and parents are happy not having to worry about them off roaming.

It's a rambling post but I can't really see why I'd be going to the local villages anymore. A haircut I suppose, and milk. What else would I possibly do apart from sitting down for midday pints?

Cities like Dublin are busy, but the community isn't particularly there. It just looks that like a lot is happening but like the countryside, it's more solitary than ever for most.

tupenny · 08-05-2018 12:43PM

Potential-Monke wrote: »

It's all good Sir. I'm 35 and live a reclusive style life. I did the whole work in a city, proper job (Garda), mortgage, relationship thing for 10 years. I gave it all up about 20 months ago and started working for me. Sold the house, moved home to help the parents in their golden years, ended it with the 7 year girlfriend as she was on about having kids (she's now married with a kid, so worked out for everyone). My experience in the Gardai has ruined alcohol for me, which is not a bad thing, but i've no interest in drinking anymore, so that basically excludes me from most events (similarly I can't stand being around drunk people when i'm sober).

The reclusive lifestyle is great in comparison. No one to answer to, do what I want with my life, still enjoy life as if I was still a teenager that didn't discover drink yet, no major responsibilities... It's great! Mentally the best i've been in about 8 years!

Fair play , sounds brilliant.
Wish I had the guts to do similar!

Mackerel and Avocado Sandwich · 08-05-2018 12:52PM

tupenny wrote: »

Fair play , sounds brilliant.
Wish I had the guts to do similar!

I wish you had the guts to move away from all of us to isolation too

tupenny · 08-05-2018 01:10PM

Mackerel and Avocado Sandwich wrote: »

I wish you had the guts to move away from all of us to isolation too

You need to relax. All agro when people don't share your opinion.. isolation might be exactly what you need. Chill!

Quite clear you havent a clue what you're on about beyond urban living btw.

Ubbquittious · 08-05-2018 01:15PM

Commuting has killed villages and small towns as well as the influx of bland international clone town shops and online retailers.

Just go for a drive around villages and small towns in rural EU in places where there aren't many "one off houses" and you'll see the same thing - villages with 0 shops or businesses. No community, nobody out on the streets. Maybe an automated petrol pump with a rusty coke vending machine if you're lucky. Road networks are too good and people don't bother socialising as they're happy out wasting their time on social media or watching videos.

I don't know where this whole notion comes from that it's an Irish problem and that people who choose to live outside the town or village are the source of the problem. Perhaps because it's easier to blame those people and pretend we can fix the problem by forcing those to relocate, than to blame the big global economic changes that have over the past 20 or so years made things the way they are.

People don't seem to appreciate local businesses until they close either. The same people you have seething over the fact that a head of cabbage costs 10c more in the local shop and thinking they're the clever man driving to Lidl for one instead will be the same lads cribbing when the local shop closes down

Mackerel and Avocado Sandwich · 08-05-2018 01:22PM

tupenny wrote: »

You need to relax. All agro when people don't share your opinion.. isolation might be exactly what you need. Chill!

Quite clear you havent a clue what you're on about beyond urban living btw.

Move to Leitrim then if you love it so much ffs

Graces7 · 08-05-2018 03:40PM

I don't know where this whole notion comes from that it's an Irish problem and that people who choose to live outside the town or village are the source of the problem. Perhaps because it's easier to blame those people and pretend we can fix the problem by forcing those to relocate, than to blame the big global economic changes that have over the past 20 or so years made things the way they are.

People don't seem to appreciate local businesses until they close either. The same people you have seething over the fact that a head of cabbage costs 10c more in the local shop and thinking they're the clever man driving to Lidl for one instead will be the same lads cribbing when the local shop closes down[/QUOTE]

if it were just 10 cents a head of cabbage... Twice the price... My neighbour here a few times mentioned the local shop and supporting them; I explained that I cannot afford to shop there..I did try and winced.And lack of choice also. Occasionally I will get a few things there. And no, no grumbles from me if they do close . Sad but not a tragedy these days as long as folk help the old folk to shop.
There is still a sense of community around but it is a quieter one now.
I enjoy the smaller towns greatly the few times I am out. Friendly folk and helpful assistants.

Graces7 · 08-05-2018 03:41PM

Mackerel and Avocado Sandwich wrote: »

Move to Leitrim then if you love it so much ffs

Nothing wrong with Leitrim . I spent a few good years there..

Cee-Jay-Cee · 08-05-2018 03:50PM

doolox wrote: »

I remember working with a woman whose family has a farm and were willing to give her a site to build a house on. Because she was not a farmer she was refused planning permission and had to buy a smaller house in a housing estate near her work. The house cost so much that she was forced to work full-time to pay off the much bigger mortgage on the much smaller house that she was forced to buy instead of the house she wanted to build on her parents land.

The resentment of being forced to live in a smaller house and a much dearer house was evident to all who had to work with her. Her productivity and joy of working were non existent.

The sudden closing off of one off housing probably has had similar effects on many working people, forcing many otherwise well-off people to work longer hours in jobs they hate in order to subscribe to the dictates of the planning authorities in some counties.

I doubt that very very much, if she was from the area and had the site then they wouldn't have refused permission. There is nothing in the planning laws that says you have to work on/near the land or be employed in farming so her story is BS and she's just a miserable cow who filled you all with a 'poor me' story about not being able to live in the country.

jmayo · 08-05-2018 04:34PM

Ubbquittious wrote: »

Commuting has killed villages and small towns as well as the influx of bland international clone town shops and online retailers.

Just go for a drive around villages and small towns in rural EU in places where there aren't many "one off houses" and you'll see the same thing - villages with 0 shops or businesses. No community, nobody out on the streets. Maybe an automated petrol pump with a rusty coke vending machine if you're lucky. Road networks are too good and people don't bother socialising as they're happy out wasting their time on social media or watching videos.

I don't know where this whole notion comes from that it's an Irish problem and that people who choose to live outside the town or village are the source of the problem. Perhaps because it's easier to blame those people and pretend we can fix the problem by forcing those to relocate, than to blame the big global economic changes that have over the past 20 or so years made things the way they are.

You see some of the muppets here just look for any excuse to have a pop at one off rural houses.
And they are now fond of pedaling the horseshyte that the local villages are dying because people live in one off rural houses and they use cars.

The thing is if you drive around the likes of France, Spain or Italy, which really don't have a lot of one off rural houses bar farms, you will find shag all bar maybe a cafe/bar, and a boulangerie in the case of France, in the local villages.

Now it can be different if the village/town happens to be in tourist area such as Dordogne, Tuscany, Costa Del Sol and especially if it has a tourist attraction such as a castle, church, old town.
Then you have restaurants, cafes, and retailers targeting the tourists.
But go off the beaten track and by christ one can find some real sad decrepit villages and towns with nothing.
I have found places in France, Italy and Spain that would make Kiltimagh look like something out of Sex and the City.

The nearest big town always has one of those large supermarket chains on the outskirts such as Carrefour, E.Leclerc, IntermarchCasino, Bricolage, Mercadona, Conad, COOP.
And nowadays the Germans are colonising these countries in a different way through Lidl and Aldi.

But no the death of villages and towns is down to one off housing. :rolleyes:

Ubbquittious wrote: »

People don't seem to appreciate local businesses until they close either. The same people you have seething over the fact that a head of cabbage costs 10c more in the local shop and thinking they're the clever man driving to Lidl for one instead will be the same lads cribbing when the local shop closes down

Yeah but all those 10c add up and you can get much fancier foreign fruit and veg in Lidl or Aldi.

Besides a lot of people that live near the local villages work in the same town as the Aldi or Lidl.

Mackerel and Avocado Sandwich wrote: »

Move to Leitrim then if you love it so much ffs

When you need to insult people from the country you have to resort to throwing Leitrim at them.
Says it all about you.

BTW Leitrim is heaven in comparison to a lot of places in this country.
Oh and that includes more than half of Dublin and Cork.

AlanG · 08-05-2018 04:49PM

whisky_galore wrote: »

If you were offered a free site, why would you next to or into a town or village and pay through the nose for the privilege?

Not everyone wants to live in a town or village either, esp if it's a bit of a dump.

As with most things, 'the environment' is fine as long as we don't have to pay for it.

The problem is these people want to live in one off houses but still expect broadband, a shop in the local village (which they will usually drive by), a school bus service, pub transport at night and a Garda on their street. If rural housing was kept for farmers then the local villages would prosper as they would have a cohort of residents within walking distance. Instead almost everyone has to drive so they may as well just to go the supermarket on the outskirts of the big town.

tupenny · 08-05-2018 04:53PM

Graces7 wrote: »

Nothing wrong with Leitrim . I spent a few good years there..

Hidden gem.. glad for it to stay that way 😉

Ubbquittious · 08-05-2018 07:10PM

AlanG wrote: »

The problem is these people want to live in one off houses but still expect broadband, a shop in the local village (which they will usually drive by), a school bus service, pub transport at night and a Garda on their street. If rural housing was kept for farmers then the local villages would prosper as they would have a cohort of residents within walking distance. Instead almost everyone has to drive so they may as well just to go the supermarket on the outskirts of the big town.

It would be better if they didn't supply broadband. It has never been easier to put up a long-range wireless link and all this national broadband plan does is take the local broadband provider's lunch and hands it to Eir, BT, Sky, Vodafone, KN Networks and various other mostly parasitic foreign middlemen.

If you plonked every fella living outside the village into a village you'll still be left with the same problem since all these fellas make regular trips to the big towns. A lot of them do so every day.

The small shops have themselves to blame for a lot of it as well. They only sell what's convenient to order from Musgrave or Biwahoog Foods, don't bother with local stuff, don't bother selling new or unusual products, don't have even attempt to make a nice sandwich. Even the chips which are hard to do wrong they somehow manage it because they reheat them or use the cheapest possible pre-cut chips they can find.

08-05-2018 09:13PM

Ubbquittious wrote: »

Commuting has killed villages and small towns as well as the influx of bland international clone town shops and online retailers.

Just go for a drive around villages and small towns in rural EU in places where there aren't many "one off houses" and you'll see the same thing - villages with 0 shops or businesses. No community, nobody out on the streets. Maybe an automated petrol pump with a rusty coke vending machine if you're lucky. Road networks are too good and people don't bother socialising as they're happy out wasting their time on social media or watching videos.

I don't know where this whole notion comes from that it's an Irish problem and that people who choose to live outside the town or village are the source of the problem. Perhaps because it's easier to blame those people and pretend we can fix the problem by forcing those to relocate, than to blame the big global economic changes that have over the past 20 or so years made things the way they are.

People don't seem to appreciate local businesses until they close either. The same people you have seething over the fact that a head of cabbage costs 10c more in the local shop and thinking they're the clever man driving to Lidl for one instead will be the same lads cribbing when the local shop closes down

That comes back to another thing, rural places are generally poorer than urban areas but in Ireland people don't seem to accept or expect it. Pass by a rural house with 4 cars outside (they'll say they need them) a mortgage-free house and ya realise there's plenty of money in the countryside (in the east at least) in Ireland. They'll complain about poor broadband (while the state invests billions) and the roads outside that only exist for them and how "Dublin gets everything".

seachto7 · 08-05-2018 09:35PM

Ubbquittious wrote: »

Commuting has killed villages and small towns as well as the influx of bland international clone town shops and online retailers.

Just go for a drive around villages and small towns in rural EU in places where there aren't many "one off houses" and you'll see the same thing - villages with 0 shops or businesses. No community, nobody out on the streets. Maybe an automated petrol pump with a rusty coke vending machine if you're lucky. Road networks are too good and people don't bother socialising as they're happy out wasting their time on social media or watching videos.

I don't know where this whole notion comes from that it's an Irish problem and that people who choose to live outside the town or village are the source of the problem. Perhaps because it's easier to blame those people and pretend we can fix the problem by forcing those to relocate, than to blame the big global economic changes that have over the past 20 or so years made things the way they are.

People don't seem to appreciate local businesses until they close either. The same people you have seething over the fact that a head of cabbage costs 10c more in the local shop and thinking they're the clever man driving to Lidl for one instead will be the same lads cribbing when the local shop closes down

It's the way lots of Irish towns and villages are built compared to say French, Italian, or Spanish villages and towns. We don't have squares, plazas, piazzas where people can go and sit and mingle. We don't have the weather where, during the summer, people go outside, and spend their time outside.

JupiterKid · 09-05-2018 06:15AM

jmayo wrote: »

You see some of the muppets here just look for any excuse to have a pop at one off rural houses.
And they are now fond of pedaling the horseshyte that the local villages are dying because people live in one off rural houses and they use cars.

The thing is if you drive around the likes of France, Spain or Italy, which really don't have a lot of one off rural houses bar farms, you will find shag all bar maybe a cafe/bar, and a boulangerie in the case of France, in the local villages.

Now it can be different if the village/town happens to be in tourist area such as Dordogne, Tuscany, Costa Del Sol and especially if it has a tourist attraction such as a castle, church, old town.
Then you have restaurants, cafes, and retailers targeting the tourists.
But go off the beaten track and by christ one can find some real sad decrepit villages and towns with nothing.
I have found places in France, Italy and Spain that would make Kiltimagh look like something out of Sex and the City.

The nearest big town always has one of those large supermarket chains on the outskirts such as Carrefour, E.Leclerc, IntermarchCasino, Bricolage, Mercadona, Conad, COOP.
And nowadays the Germans are colonising these countries in a different way through Lidl and Aldi.

But no the death of villages and towns is down to one off housing. :rolleyes:

Yeah but all those 10c add up and you can get much fancier foreign fruit and veg in Lidl or Aldi.
Besides a lot of people that live near the local villages work in the same town as the Aldi or Lidl.

When you need to insult people from the country you have to resort to throwing Leitrim at them.
Says it all about you.

BTW Leitrim is heaven in comparison to a lot of places in this country.
Oh and that includes more than half of Dublin and Cork.

The irony of this post is so thick it could be cut with a chainsaw. Give out about those (including myself) who see unfettered Rural one-off housing as a major factor in the decline of villages and smaller rural towns and then attack urban Ireland in the same post. One-off rural housing is not the sole cause of the problems - other economic, social and technological changes are also to blame, but it is definitely a significant contributing factor. I have carried out quite a body of research in this area so I know what I’m talking about.

Shows how blinkered those in their “McMansions” that are blighting the rural lansscape really are. No-one is proposing for rural areas to be deserted, but atrocious gombeen planning has damaged smaller rural settlements and is ultimately unsustainable.

I foresee a lot of rural one-off housing outside of the major urban commuting zones becoming abandoned within a generation or two just like older farmhouses have all over the country in the past 30 years.

Graces7 · 09-05-2018 06:31AM

Deleted User wrote: »

That comes back to another thing, rural places are generally poorer than urban areas but in Ireland people don't seem to accept or expect it. Pass by a rural house with 4 cars outside (they'll say they need them) a mortgage-free house and ya realise there's plenty of money in the countryside (in the east at least) in Ireland. They'll complain about poor broadband (while the state invests billions) and the roads outside that only exist for them and how "Dublin gets everything".

I once made that comment re 4 cars to a man in a post office in a small town. He looked at me and said," Four cars outside does not mean 4 cars paid for".....

Graces7 · 09-05-2018 06:38AM

Ubbquittious wrote: »

It would be better if they didn't supply broadband. It has never been easier to put up a long-range wireless link and all this national broadband plan does is take the local broadband provider's lunch and hands it to Eir, BT, Sky, Vodafone, KN Networks and various other mostly parasitic foreign middlemen.

If you plonked every fella living outside the village into a village you'll still be left with the same problem since all these fellas make regular trips to the big towns. A lot of them do so every day.

The small shops have themselves to blame for a lot of it as well. They only sell what's convenient to order from Musgrave or Biwahoog Foods, don't bother with local stuff, don't bother selling new or unusual products, don't have even attempt to make a nice sandwich. Even the chips which are hard to do wrong they somehow manage it because they reheat them or use the cheapest possible pre-cut chips they can find.

Agree re broadband. I am with a small local fixed wireless system and am very happy. Before that it was digiweb

Disagree re the chips! I rarely buy food out but had chips at a small village shop a while ago that were the best I have ever had...
will buy there again!

whisky_galore · 09-05-2018 08:37AM

seachto7 wrote: »

It's the way lots of Irish towns and villages are built compared to say French, Italian, or Spanish villages and towns. We don't have squares, plazas, piazzas where people can go and sit and mingle. We don't have the weather where, during the summer, people go outside, and spend their time outside.

The continentals spend time with family and extended family, eating and drinking together, not retreating into the pub to drink to get drunk.

Ubbquittious · 09-05-2018 10:23AM

Graces7 wrote: »

Agree re broadband. I am with a small local fixed wireless system and am very happy. Before that it was digiweb

Disagree re the chips! I rarely buy food out but had chips at a small village shop a while ago that were the best I have ever had...
will buy there again!

You're lucky. For me there's not a good bag of chips to be had within 10km unless I make them myself

Surely to the Lord all these holiday cottages around the place do more to hasten the demise of rural Ireland than people actually living in the countryside. They're empty most of the year until someone rocks up a few times a year with all their supplies bought in the big town.

Prevents the younger folk from staying in the community since you have all these posh bastids from the city pushing up the price of houses. Since they're empty most of the year it ensures the place is deserted most of the year too. I'd be looking at island property and I cringe when I see "Ideal as a holiday home" written in the description. Anyone trying to put a stop to this carry on will be given the "free market" spiel.

jmayo · 09-05-2018 10:30AM

AlanG wrote: »

The problem is these people want to live in one off houses but still expect broadband, a shop in the local village (which they will usually drive by), a school bus service, pub transport at night and a Garda on their street. If rural housing was kept for farmers then the local villages would prosper as they would have a cohort of residents within walking distance. Instead almost everyone has to drive so they may as well just to go the supermarket on the outskirts of the big town.

Ehh I know people living in and around a small village who are paying €350 per year for their school bus service to the nearest secondary school.
When the fook are people going to cop on that you will meet the people from the local village in the nearest Aldi, Lidl, Tesco just like you will meet the ones who live in the one off rural houses outside the village.
No sane fooker is going to do their weekly shop in the local Centra, Londis or Spar.

It is like listening to wantabee Devs rabbiting on as if we will all be living in twee little villages, walking or cycling everywhere, with a dance at the cross roads of a saturday evening, if it wasn't for those dreadful one off rural houses ruining everything. :rolleyes:

JupiterKid wrote: »

The irony of this post is so thick it could be cut with a chainsaw. Give out about those (including myself) who see unfettered Rural one-off housing as a major factor in the decline of villages and smaller rural towns and then attack urban Ireland in the same post. One-off rural housing is not the sole cause of the problems - other economic, social and technological changes are also to blame, but it is definitely a significant contributing factor. I have carried out quite a body of research in this area so I know what I’m talking about.

Lets see your research.
How big a contributory factor is it in your opinion ?

Have you ever traveled around rural France, Italy or Spain?
And I don't mean the tourist hotspots, but the real countries where there isn't the employment, the tourism, etc.
Their villages and small towns are also in huge decline.
And they do not have your excuse of one off rural housing so called blights.
You even get Americans talking about it in their country.

I would say by a huge margin employment and availability of cars to travel to said employment is the biggest factor in people staying local and building on family plots.
The day is gone when people living in the middle of the countryside are expected to only go to the nearest town once or twice a year.

Contrary to what you and others might think or want to shove down people's throats those living in the countryside, be that in a small village or in a one off rural house somewhere near, like choice and value so they aint going to be told you have to do everything in your local village or town.
Yes they will go for a drink down to the local pub, but they will travel for their weekly shopping, etc.

JupiterKid wrote: »

Shows how blinkered those in their “McMansions” that are blighting the rural lansscape really are. No-one is proposing for rural areas to be deserted, but atrocious gombeen planning has damaged smaller rural settlements and is ultimately unsustainable.

I foresee a lot of rural one-off housing outside of the major urban commuting zones becoming abandoned within a generation or two just like older farmhouses have all over the country in the past 30 years.

WTF is a McMansion really ?
Oh yeah "a house bigger than the one I live in stuck in the middle of a town or city."

The reason the old farmhouses are abandoned is because lack of employment and emigration.
We had huge number of very small farms that were even years ago financially unviable and there wasn't any local employment.

I come from an area where emigration has been a fact of life for the nearly hundreds of years, definitely since the Famine.

The reason one off rural houses became more common was because since the 70s people had options of being able to travel to work and still live near where they were born.

whisky_galore wrote: »

The continentals spend time with family and extended family, eating and drinking together, not retreating into the pub to drink to get drunk.

It aint just limited to the towns and villages, but it is probably more visible there.
Just look at the pi**up that is St Patrick's week/weekend in Dublin.

Graces7 · 09-05-2018 10:48AM

Ubbquittious wrote: »

You're lucky. For me there's not a good bag of chips to be had within 10km unless I make them myself

Surely to the Lord all these holiday cottages around the place do more to hasten the demise of rural Ireland than people actually living in the countryside. They're empty most of the year until someone rocks up a few times a year with all their supplies bought in the big town.

Prevents the younger folk from staying in the community since you have all these posh bastids from the city pushing up the price of houses. Since they're empty most of the year it ensures the place is deserted most of the year too. I'd be looking at island property and I cringe when I see "Ideal as a holiday home" written in the description. Anyone trying to put a stop to this carry on will be given the "free market" spiel.

I was surprised by the chips too.. Bangor Erris supermarket

Agree totally re the holiday lets and second homes. I spent days last year asking at shops and post offices trying to find long term rental on the islands eg Inishbofin were the worst. And they grumbling re depopulation.

When I phoned Inishbofin, and said I wanted a long term rental , they asked,"Six months?" and I replied, "Five years." there was a stunned silence then guffaws of laughter.

Blessed to find this island place that had been abandoned by the council who said. "There is no demand for social housing there."

El Tarangu · 09-05-2018 11:11AM

Deleted User wrote: »

I live in a mid sized town, and while there are quite a few large companies here, most of the employees are coming from abroad...

... I have two Business degrees (and heaps of experience), and couldn't find work in the area. All the jobs relate to hospitality, pharmaceuticals, or tech-science. The remaining jobs are the basics like working in a pub (not terribly useful for someone like me with a shaking disorder), or low paid part-time work in the cafes nearby.

That's the thing about living in the countryside; while things like cost of living is cheaper, and a nicer pace of life in some ways, you are more limited in the type of jobs that you can get. How many industries can you reasonably expect an area with a small catchment of potential employees to support?

El Tarangu · 09-05-2018 11:15AM

Potential-Monke wrote: »

Why is living reclusive a bad thing? If i could afford it, I'd be living by myself in the middle of the country, as long as it had decent enough internet. People are dicks, they're fake and all they want to talk about is what x person did, who y is shagging, they're always in the same bars with the same people drinking the same pi$s and talking the same sh!te, being nosey and interfering with other peoples lives. I hate that, I want no part of it. Rumours and gossip making people do and say things they shouldn't be doing or saying. My life is no one else's business. I don't care what mary from up the road is doing, or who Mike from over yonder is riding.

That's strange, as I have always thought of the countryside as being much worse for curtain-twitching and gossip. You are much more anonymous living in a big city.

Graces7 · 09-05-2018 01:03PM

El Tarangu wrote: »

That's strange, as I have always thought of the countryside as being much worse for curtain-twitching and gossip. You are much more anonymous living in a big city.

Houses are further apart so less observation in fact. Fewer people so less gossip also. and privacy is valued

seachto7 · 09-05-2018 01:45PM

whisky_galore wrote: »

The continentals spend time with family and extended family, eating and drinking together, not retreating into the pub to drink to get drunk.

Lots of Irish families go on the piss together in the pub. Tacky ****.

farmchoice · 09-05-2018 02:01PM

could you post it here please or post a link to it. i have no great attachment to one off housing but as a resident or rural Ireland i cannot for the life of me see how it is causing the decline of small Irish towns.

one off housing in the country side has always been the way Irish rural dwellers have lived. the houses nowadays are bigger but the problem is there are less of them then there used to be not more.

there are lots of reasons why small irish towns are not as vibrant as they used to be.
the biggest one is the myth that they used to be vibrant. john healy wrote ''death of an irish town'' about Charlestown over 30 years ago.
its been dying ever since yet somehow refuses to expire.

The demise of the small/medium sized Irish town

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