The general chit-chat thread [READ THE FIRST POST BEFORE POSTING HERE]

Anyone know whats going on at the Race Course? Loads of camper vans up there half of last week and yesterday, then big crowd on the track yesterday morning. Didn't appear to be races on, and nothing being advertised.

homer simpson wrote: »

Anyone any recommendations on where to park in town. Parked in the cathedral carpark today but didn't like the look of the 2 cars with smashed in side windows and the general amount of glass peppered around when I went to leave this evening.

Dunnes Stores Cranmore car park. It's free and just a short walk to town.

Don't pay for parking in town, it's not even going to the corporation/council as the pay machines are just broken into and coins robbed.

how many other ways is there to tell my pooch that 'No you can't get up on my knees right now because your soaking wet!!!!

he was working away alright .. saw him reversing into one of the driveways when I was passing!

Kettleson wrote: »

The sight of these guys from a private company punching holes in the ground outside of houses is one of the most frustratingly sad sights I have yet to behold. It was like a scene out of Orwells 1984.

I'm beginning to buy into the concept of the psychopathic control grid and how the Irish Government has bought into it wholesale.

Ok, there's folks that will justify it in comparison to gas and electricity, but water! Lord above where has our society ended up?

And meanwhile the diggers will just keep rolling relentlessly on and will be outside your door sometime soon. It would not surprise me if our own free time will taxed sometime in the future.

I have no problem at all paying for water, as it's not the water you're paying for as such, it's the treatment and delivery to the tap, the problem I have is that we're already paying for this lumped in other taxes, we should see some other tax reduce to balance it out.

At least water is one utility that the cost can be fairly easily reduced by harvesting your own.

Hi, Im looking to rent a house in Co. Sligo anyone can recommend nice and quiet estate at Collooney?Thanks

shanec1928 wrote: »

why was the laptop repair thread deleted?

I didn't delete it as I wasn't around yesterday afternoon but from what I saw beforehand it descended into petty backwards and forwards bickering - someone possibly set up an account purely to slander a company.

Spent a few days down the midlands in the past week. Visited a few different towns and feel that some other towns around the country have recovered from the recession far better than Sligo has. Would anyone else agree that Sligo is still struggling, with new jobs, commercially, with infrastructure, etc?

The towns I am referring to are Kilkenny and Portlaoise. Both seemed to be recovering quiet well. Portlaoise had a shopping centre, much bigger than anything that Sligo, with big name shops, packed with people, carrying full shopping bags and with no empty shop units. Kilkenny was the same.

The restaurants in Kilkenny had decent numbers of people from late afternoon. This is in contrast to a well regarded restaurant, my favourite restaurant in Sligo, that my wife and I went to last night during a bank holiday weekend, thinking it would be packed, it was empty.

One thing that was evident in Portlaoise and Kilkenny was that free parking (up to three hours) was drawing people into the towns. I understand that the County has a lot of debt and relies upon parking charges but within 20 minutes of arriving back in Sligo on Saturday I spotted the parking warden putting a ticket on a car, that cannot be helping.

On a related note, is it time to look at the Centre Block in Wine St. car park again? On a smaller scale? I think it is, or this town will only slip further behind the rest of the country and it would cost a lot less now than seven years ago and create much needed jobs.

All that said, Sligo is really well these days, well done to everyone involved.

red sean wrote: »

I'd agree there's a much quicker turnaround in the eastern half of the country.
Portlaoise/Carlow etc. have gained hugely from the motorway link to Dublin and are now almost satellite towns of the capital.
Kilkenny was always busy, they seem to know how to make the most of their tourist attractions (such as the castle)
and always appeared to have some nice restaurants and pubs.

The N4 upgrade, which was ok'ed last week should see an improvement for the NW in general, but we're still
too far from Dublin to benefit from any big population increase.
The Wild Atlantic Way should also help our tourism, but I'd say it will be a couple of years before it's established enough for us to see any major spin-off. I've heard two Germans talking about doing it in 2 days! Tourists don't seem to know yet how long it actually is.



However, it's great to see what's being done to improve the appearance of what we've got.

I know I am biased but we have got a lot. I wonder how many Counties can tick all the boxes to say they have;

5 blue flag beaches.
Beautiful scenery including a table top mountain!
A Racecourse with a beautiful backdrop.
Golf courses.
Surfing and Watersports.
Lakes and Fishing.
Woodland/Hiking walks.
Historical buildings like Lissadell.
A River running through the centre with places to dine overlooking it.
Award winning restaurants spread throughout the County.
Shopping.
Bars.
Night clubs.
Parks.
Cinema.
Theatre.
Cathedrals.
Decent roads into the City/Town Centre to take advantage of all the above.
The list goes on.

No worries they will be paying as well;)