What's it like in CASTLEBAR ?

Mars · 27-05-2003 12:29am #1

Anyone here live in Castlebar?

What's it like to live there ? Is there much trouble ?

Is it a cool place? Would you recommend it to someone as a nice place to live?

Anyone got any info/gossip about Castlebar?

GuanYin · 27-05-2003 12:34am

I was offered a job in Baxter there and I went down for a weekend to mull it over.

I wasn't impressed with the place at all. It seemed pretty dull and lifeless. Its not nearly as nice a town as Westport which is near enough or Sligo.

If you are thinking of taking a job down there, perhaps buy a car and commute from Westport.

Obviously in the end I didn't go, partly due to the impression I got of Baxter, partly due to my impression of castlebar and partly due to an offer I got elsewhere.

swalsh · 28-05-2003 3:53pm

not all of that is true. i have been up here for three years due to college and i have stayed up every summer. i grand once you get to know a few people and find teh best drinking holes.
p.s. i am from galway so that should say something

Shiminay · 29-05-2003 8:21am

I'm from Breaffy which is 3 miles outside the town.

It's an OK place, but there doesn't tend to be too much to do. It's not a bad place to live though - I go home most weekends (currently living in Galway).

Actually, my brother works in the afore mentioned Baxter and reckons it's an OK place to work - however, he works night shift so wouldn't have any exposure to any and all day time grief.

yop · 29-05-2003 8:42am

As above from Westport but went to college in the old mental institute and am in Cbar nearly ever weekend.
Definately when I was there in college (9 years ago!!) it was a great spot, only one night club on a Thurs nite but the pubs were good. I supposidly has got a bit rougher to go out in but what town in Ireland has not!
If I had the chance I think I would live in the area probably outside it a bit (Breaffy is a bit too up market !

).

All in all, what do you want from the place you are going to live.?

A few decent watering holes? Then Cbar is grand.
A place where u may actually be able to afford a house, this is changing there, Then Cbar is grand.
If you like all the beaches and that then you have them 18 miles away.

Baxter- had a mate working there in IT for 2 years and he loved it.

Thanx 4 The Fish · 29-05-2003 10:46am

You would have to move quite a bit away from town to get a decent 3 bed house for much less than €200k now, which is a shame because it used to be that you could buy a house fairly inexpensively there and rent a couple of rooms out, essentioally paying your mortgage off for ya.

Anyway, there are a few decent pubs, an alright cinema and leisureplex. A couple of good gyms and alot of nurses in college, what else could ya want.

yop · 29-05-2003 11:08am

You would have to move quite a bit away from town to get a decent 3 bed house for much less than €200k now, which is a shame because it used to be that you could buy a house fairly inexpensively there and rent a couple of rooms out, essentioally paying your mortgage off for ya.

Is it that expensive there now! fk! Probably better building then me reckons!

Thanx 4 The Fish · 29-05-2003 11:17am

Bought for 137k before christmas and since the national spatial plan designated castlebar it jumped to 180k and then last week jumped again, so the house that we bought, which still isn't built is worth 60k more than we bought it for. Unfortunately if we were to sell to get that profit we would not be able to buy new anywhere else, or take advantage of the first time buyers grant again

We were looking at sights and you could get half an acre about 5 miles outside town for €27,000. Then depending on the home you chose to build and who you know, you could throw a decent house up for 100k.

yop · 29-05-2003 2:42pm

That is some jump!

We were looking at sights and you could get half an acre about 5 miles outside town for €27,000. Then depending on the home you chose to build and who you know, you could throw a decent house up for 100k.

Would u not have done that?

Thanx 4 The Fish · 29-05-2003 10:41pm

Would be tougher to sell and since there is no safe jobs in computers atthe moment, we could be moving at a couple of months notice..

Mars · 18-06-2003 1:29am

Just out of curiosity, what do you guys think of Ballina?

Is it a nice place? It's got a lovely river running through the town.

Haven't heard from anyone who has lived there though...

hacktavist · 18-06-2003 2:51am

Castlebar has a river to...
And a lake..

Mars · 18-06-2003 12:19pm

Must have missed that...

It doesn't run through the centre of town does it? I didn't notice it myself...

Is it out of town a bit?

Shiminay · 18-06-2003 2:12pm

Yup! It runs through the middle of the town - ever notice the bridge at the bottom of Main Street (beside the traffic lights).

The lake is further up the town by the cemetry.

Mars · 18-06-2003 8:26pm

I was only in Castlebar once myself...

Is it a big river like the one in Ballina?

I remember (I think anyhow) there was a stream running past a large church. You could walk through the church car park over a small foot-bridge and into a car park.

Is this the river?

irishgeo · 20-06-2003 12:39am

yes thats it. its runs under the main street and there is nly one side to the bridge by the old dunnes supermarket.

I am really tired so excuse my typing errors.

hacktavist · 20-06-2003 2:56am

Are you thinking about moving here mars?

Mars · 20-06-2003 10:30am

Well, it's just a thought.

You can get much more for your money (in terms of buying a house that it) around Castlebar than you can in Galway...

Thanx 4 The Fish · 20-06-2003 3:55pm

While you will get much more for your money in castlebar, you will get less of said money if you were to work here. Now working in Galway and commuting from C'bar is well worth your while.

de5p0i1er · 23-06-2003 2:56am

Originally posted by Kharn
Actually, my brother works in the afore mentioned Baxter and reckons it's an OK place to work - however, he works night shift so wouldn't have any exposure to any and all day time grief.

I never said it was a good place to work, the supervisors are way to greedy and work you like slaves to make them look good for there next salery review. The tempreture in there is way to high and very unhealthy. The place is filthey the most descusting factory I've been in in my entire life I'd never use there products if I had a choice in the matter.

As for Castlebar the town. It sucks, there is next to no night life as there are only two night clubs and one's filled with kids (aged 13 to 17) and the other filled with ppl in there fortys theres no room for young ppl.

Every thing is pretty dear as there are so few shops in the town and very little selection.

In short its an ok place to visit but you wouldn't want to live there.

Mars · 23-06-2003 10:47am

The only other towns I had thought about were

Ballina
Tuam
Ballinasloe

Anyone got any opinions about how lively/dull these towns are to live in? Or crime levels etc?

Any gossip.....?

irishgeo · 23-06-2003 10:53am

Forget the first two anyway.

Tuam is full of Travellers and Ballina is not far behind.

Mars · 23-06-2003 12:32pm

Well, I have to admit Tuam doesn't really strike me as being a fantastic place to live.....

it was just a thought.....

jabberwock · 23-06-2003 1:04pm

Hey, take it handy there Geo.

Don't forget I know where you live!!!

Tuam isn't as bad as it used to be.

Shiminay · 23-06-2003 2:09pm

Ballinasloe has the highest percentage of tinkers per population in the country. Steer clear unless you like filth and crime (gross generalisation, yes, but I'd sooner wipe those ****ers from existance than Sadam and Bin Laden)

To be brutally honest, out of all the places you've listed, Castelbar is the best.

If you didn't have to live in a town (i.e. you have a car), I'd recommend places like Breaffy (yay), Balla (cousins there - a nice enough place), Claremorris (OK, it's a town, but not much of one), etc. On the Galway side of things, there's Moycullen, Barna maybe even Spiddal!

Could save further or you could get a bigger house and when you need to, you can get to town (Breaffy is 5 mins away from Castlebar, Moycullen 10/15 from Galway, etc).

Thanx 4 The Fish · 23-06-2003 6:01pm

Unfortunately there is to be no more palnning permission for new houses to be granted to people looking to build in Breaffy. Tis well for some of ye millionairey types already living there

irishgeo · 24-06-2003 11:01am

Originally posted by jabberwock
Hey, take it handy there Geo.

Don't forget I know where you live!!!

Tuam isn't as bad as it used to be.

Well apart from jabberwock's family.

MazyMo · 24-06-2003 12:41pm

Kharn,

is that true about Ballinasloe? I've only ever passed through the place - it always seemed like a fairly quiet sort of place.

while we're talking about towns - a friend of mine is maybe going to get a job in Athlone.

Anyone here spent any time in Athlone?

Ronan|Raven · 28-06-2003 12:32am

Stay clear of BallinaSloe although I know a lot of sound people there, there are a right bunch of inbred morons running around the place. Move to Roscommon! Second Home of meh which is always good, nice people and a soon to be nice Wireless Service ... oh and did I mention me?

GuanYin · 28-06-2003 1:43pm

(Edit: Despoiler seems to have deleted his post, so this looks irrelevant now, in cany case I'm talking about Baxter)

When I went down for the interview I had a good look around.
I love sligo and have aot of mates from the west so I thought it was worth a look (plus the job and money they were offering was very tempting).

The place itself seemed like a souless place to work. One of the things that stuck in my mind was a form that I saw while waiting for my interview. It was in one of thise form distribution racks that they hang on walls and the general jist was.

"I acknowledge that I have done something bad and realise if I do something bad again I may be disciplined. Signed ..............."

I mean jesus!!

As it turned out they set the R&D project back a couple of months and tried to keep me dangling and not giving me a straigh answer. By the time they finally offered I'd accepted another position. I never actually claimed back interview expenses...I might do that this week for the craic!

As for the town itself, I just wasn't impressed. My parents live in a small town and I've lived in a small town in rural Galway but Castlebar was just a step too far. I'd have commuted from Westport but again, I wouldn't work for Baxter.

Anywas...ramble aside.

Mars, what is your obsessions with rural western towns?

Inspector Gadget · 28-06-2003 4:40pm

Originally posted by Kharn
If you didn't have to live in a town (i.e. you have a car), I'd recommend places like Breaffy (yay), Balla (cousins there - a nice enough place), Claremorris (OK, it's a town, but not much of one), etc. On the Galway side of things, there's Moycullen, Barna maybe even Spiddal!

Could save further or you could get a bigger house and when you need to, you can get to town (Breaffy is 5 mins away from Castlebar, Moycullen 10/15 from Galway, etc).

Erm, I seem to remember reading something a month or two back saying that the most expensive places in Ireland to build/buy a house in Ireland were Howth... and Barna. Bearing in mind that this island of ours was described as follows in the Indo at the end of last month:

Ireland is the third most expensive country for a house after Japan and the Netherlands. Dublin is the seventh most pricey capital for a city centre two bedroom flat after London, New York, Tokyo, Milan, Paris and Sydney.

...:eek:

Barna village is turning into a high-brow suburb of Galway these days, and the house prices are reflecting this. Spiddal, where I'm from, is a little better, but not much. Very few sites, PP's almost impossible (has been for a long time, unless you know the right people - if you do, tell me who the hell they are :rolleyes: )

Another issue to bear in mind about going west is that the Galway-Carraroe road, the R336, is the busiest B-road in the country by a significant margin - there's serious congestion there from very early in the morning, especially as one of the primary routes into town meets up with the main outlet from the Western Distributor road (Galway's equivalent of Tallaght, for all intents and purposes) meaning that Barna/Spiddal etc. are not fun places to commute from.

Moycullen has always been expensive to buy or build in; it's been a popular haunt for college lecturers and the likes, although it's getting more and more "common" (as some might describe it)these days. There's also a serious problem there in that the sewage systems can't cope with the number of houses, and there's a virtual moratorium on new construction until something can be done, as far as I know.

One thing's certain, you won't save money buying/building in any of these places.

Just my 2c...
Gadget

What's it like in CASTLEBAR ?

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