Most miserable and grim towns and villages in Ireland

ChikiChiki wrote: »

Never been there but my vote goes to Tipperary Town.

Rochfortbridge.

Athlone, Church Street which is the main Street down the centre of the town has been destroyed by the awful "street enhancement" plague.The Town Centre shopping centre should never have been built during the boom. The site of the old Athlone Shopping Centre is disgraceful with the awful obnoxious multi storey carpark and closed up shop units that are just ugly and an eyesore.Connaught Street on the Westside is now almost completely derelict with very depressing closed up shops.The Golden Island Shopping Centre is built on what used to be the old rubbish dump beside the River Shannon,there is constantly a smell of sewerage around the carpark.I live about 15 km approx from it and it is not the great town anymore that I remember from my childhood.

Balbriggan although it has potential.

JohnnyFlash wrote: »

Ballinasloe?

Congratulations...your prize is a pristine sheet of A4 paper...to avail of this magnificent reward, please send a self-addressed and stamped envelope to Headoffice, Galway, European Capital of Culture, 2020.

Has anyone said Moate yet?
What am I saying, of course they have

Infernal Racket wrote: »

There are many towns and villages in Ireland which just seem to have got left behind in the 40s or 50s. For me, the following towns are the worst I've seen. Granard, Co Longford, stuck in a time warp it can't escape from. Rathdowney in Laois is not far behind. Third I'd go for Castlerea in Roscommon, they still have a travelling cinema which visits once in a while. What are your experiences of towns that time forgot??

Way to support our own.

Deiselurker wrote: »

Fethard in Co Tipperary is a grim looking place that looks like it's stuck in a time warp and has awful bumpy road surfaces.
I lived in New Ross over 20 years ago for a short time and it wasn't great although maybe it's livened up with the influx of Polish and other immigrants since then. It's now bypassed as well as traffic was awful there for years.

Lived in fethard for awhile, have family there too and I can say it's even grimmer than it looks, in recent years a couple of popular pups and shops have closed and drug crime is a major problem there, also vandalism and robberies

Thelonious Monk wrote: »

I wonder why so many of our towns are horrible? Nice towns and villages are few and far between. I know the UK has loads of sh*tholes but some of the villages I've been to there are like something from a fairy tale.

Not sure what areas you were in but in the UK it is possible to buy houses within the borders of national parks. Their national parks are a hell of a lot bigger than our own and thousands of people live within side of them in villages with a couple of shops and a pub or two. As they're in national parks they are also in conservation areas and the local council has a lot of power to make sure these fairy tale villages stay exactly the same.

In conservation areas they have rules and regulations on what you can and cant do to your house, I used to go out with girl from near Lake Windermere in the Lake District and in her village all the houses had thatched roofs. Its in a conservation area so an owner has to maintain the look of the building or else planning enforcement comes out and pays a visit and fines issue. That means they have to rethatch the roof every couple of years at a cost of thousands. Before you buy a house there you accept that the thatch has to be maintained and it will cost you a fair bit of money to do so. Theres lots of wealth in these areas so people generally comply, also people dont want their name in the local paper for refusing to maintain their house the way all their neighbours are doing. So there is lots of pressure to conform and people living in these areas are very proud of the beauty of them and go to great lengths to preserve it.

So the fairy tale villages you see in the UK did not happen by accident, they happened by design and the strict enforcement of conservation to keep them that way.

tastyt wrote:

We on the other hand were piss poor and a lot of our towns villages are terribly planned

Terribly planned? I think you mean "organic"

Bob the Builder wrote: »

My sentiment exactly. In fact, only for your grammar is better than mine, I'd swear it was me who wrote that

If you have any work or career ambitions, you're wasting your time being anywhere outside of Dublin. Save for maybe Waterford's tech scene, or Limerick or Galway for pharma or medical devices manufacturing. Almost every mainstay company has their headquarters in Dublin - and this is where all the best jobs are for that reason. All of the decision making happens in Dublin.

If you do manage to get a good job down the country, you're basically stuck there. You're stuck working with people who have never left that town or that company, that have floated to the jobs they're in and you can't leave because there's no other employer around.

For example, I can think of minimum five companies based all the way down the western seaboard and their only real selling points are - you can surf here and it's cheap(er) rent than Dublin with less traffic congestion.

I share your sentiment here with the exception of Galway. It only has med device firms and realistically Dublin and Cork are the home of Pharma.
Professionals will be drawn to Dublin and Cork.
Allergan in Westport and Regeneron in Limerick are exceptions