Ireland's grimmest place

[Canalman]

Limerick is fine imo. Sound and friendly people and a great place to go out at night.

Charming in a very understated way.

[guy crouchback]

I'd describe the majority of NI's towns and villages as quite grim. You've got those places like Newbuildings and Dervock, in which it seems the locals are so so inbred they would happily build a 20 foot concrete wall around. Then there's the likes of Middletown, Rathfriland and Comber, which look like places time has forgot; made worse by it being an especially grey and drab period of time when they were forgotten.

Newry, Portadown, Derry, Lurgan, Omagh, Cookstown, Lisburn, Belfast. All grotty and suffer a general lack of vision, consistency and investment.

I suppose villages are a different kettle of fish, but the like of Middletown, Derrynoose, Newbuildings, Donemana, Garvagh, Fintona, Newtonstewart, Augher, Plumbridge, Coalisland would depress the life out of you if you lived there.  Its unbelievable how much nicer villages and towns down south appear, places such as Sligo, Monaghan or Castleblayney all have a bit of character to them whereas every town up north are more or less designed in that same old ugly plantation format.  Lurgan and Cookstown are two examples of this, with their big long wide main street.  Portrush has to be one of the ugliest towns about.

I think this is a relatively recent development. I grew up in Castlebar and for my teens I thought it was a hole. Now don't get me wrong, I would still argue with anyone who said their hole was better, but I still thought of it that way. The lake was a great place to go as kids but it was our secret, hidden away from the rest of the world. In the 1990s they really did a good job doing the town up and in the last 10 years the place is completely unrecognisable from the hole of my youth. They built great playgrounds for kids at the lake, completely opened it all up for everyone and created a lovely walk, run or cycle around part of the lake. I believe they are looking into connecting it to Westport and the Greenway. That would be a fantastic resource.

But if you said they have done a good job with a lot of towns/village in the south I would have to agree.

Castlebar was a right kip when I was younger, it did a great job during the boom in redeveloping.
Ballina went down hill in the 2000s and was a right kip for a long time, looks to be getting back on its feet

Swinford is depressing with not a lot going for it

Charlestown is just full of c**ts

agree with pretty much all of this, Ballina has defiantly improved a lot in the last 5 years, the new bridge, tree planting ,work on the park, beleek woods  the new museum and library, the general  re development of the main street and a big effort by the tidy towns crowd has seen a massive improvement, having said that we still have a few estates that would go toe to toe with the best limerick has to offer.

in fact mayo county council for all their shortcomings have to be commended for their work in improving the look of most of Mayo's towns and villages and its amazing how a small bit of investment spurs on the local people to do more for their locality.

i was in ballyhanuis during the summer and i hardly recognised it, it had really improved, and most of the small villages have come on a lot, kilkelly however remains a notable exception.

[No Soloing]

Lisburn and Derrytrasna need added to this list too.  Actually really like Fundoran.   Stick in Tandragee and Markethill too.

Lisburn is like jeckyll & hyde. Half of it is grim, the other half is very nice. It doesnt really have any good pubs, restaurants or shops though.
Any of the villages that you pass through and its flags and red, white & blue kerbstones from one end to another are the worst. Most villages wouldnt have much going for them but these ones take it down a notch covering themselves in such crap. Some still look like Garvagh in the 1980s - maybe Garvagh still looks like it did in the 1980s - its been years since I've been through it but I always hated it.

[lawnseed]

you haven't experienced grim until you've visited LARNE it's only matched on the grim scale by its twin sister Stranraer in Scotland. two horrible holes

[Mayo4Sam]

Limerick is fine imo. Sound and friendly people and a great place to go out at night.

Charming in a very understated way.

Your a dub though, youre used to knackers, Limerick is probably an upgrade

[Canalman]

Limerick is fine imo. Sound and friendly people and a great place to go out at night.

Charming in a very understated way.

Your a dub though, youre used to knackers, Limerick is probably an upgrade

Fair enough I suppose. You don't seem to like Dublin . Something happen to you  when you were there last. 

[nrico2006]

Lisburn and Derrytrasna need added to this list too.  Actually really like Fundoran.   Stick in Tandragee and Markethill too.

Lisburn is like jeckyll & hyde. Half of it is grim, the other half is very nice. It doesnt really have any good pubs, restaurants or shops though.
Any of the villages that you pass through and its flags and red, white & blue kerbstones from one end to another are the worst. Most villages wouldnt have much going for them but these ones take it down a notch covering themselves in such crap. Some still look like Garvagh in the 1980s - maybe Garvagh still looks like it did in the 1980s - its been years since I've been through it but I always hated it.

Garvagh actually popped into my head yesterday.  I can't imagine it looks any different now than it did in the 80's.

[LeoMc]

Most places mention on this thread especially down south i have been in and didnt think them that bad compared to some loyalist places in the north, its different that a town is run down due to shops closing and unruly locals and vandalism and little funding, but compared to the local residents going out of their way to paint road kerbs, bunting everywhere, flags out of every window and on bt poles, blocking roads.

Up here we are stuck for choice, lets look at Larne, the Ballykeel area of ballymena, The low end of the newtownards road in east belfast, tiger bays into fortwilliam in north belfast,  Taughmonagh in south belfast, The Donegall Rd in general, looks like something out of duffys circus.

Until you lads have had the pleasure of been in any of these areas which i do on weekly basis on and off through work (Name tag hidden of course) other places down south aint even in the same park,

We should rename this thread the grimmest place in Belfast as it got to have 4/5 of ireland top 10 contenders!!

In fairness to Belfast it has a few nice areas (if you remove the flags), some great old buildings (those that survived), a lot of green space (check for floating drug dealers in the water) and good night life (if you keep yourself to yourself).

[screenexile]

Lisburn and Derrytrasna need added to this list too.  Actually really like Fundoran.   Stick in Tandragee and Markethill too.

Lisburn is like jeckyll & hyde. Half of it is grim, the other half is very nice. It doesnt really have any good pubs, restaurants or shops though.
Any of the villages that you pass through and its flags and red, white & blue kerbstones from one end to another are the worst. Most villages wouldnt have much going for them but these ones take it down a notch covering themselves in such crap. Some still look like Garvagh in the 1980s - maybe Garvagh still looks like it did in the 1980s - its been years since I've been through it but I always hated it.

Garvagh actually popped into my head yesterday.  I can't imagine it looks any different now than it did in the 80's.

Complete shitehole!! Coleraine isn't much better it's a horrible town!

[johnneycool]

And they want to build a 50K stadium down there, just look at the traffic to the post office on dole day. 

[Jeepers Creepers]

Larne, Newtownards, Portadown, Coleraine.......

[johnneycool]

Larne, Newtownards, Portadown, Coleraine.......

whatever made you think of Newtownards;;



The place where Offaly hurlers decided to do a warm up in the early 90's....

[mouview]

Can't believe we've gotten this far without Ennis being mentioned. Full of emigrants, migrants, knacks, gypos, loafers, spongers, spides, weirdos, headbangers, scumbags and various others sorts of ne'er-do-wells. Avoid because it's a void.

[Tony Baloney]

Prefer the Andytown Roundabout myself.

[nrico2006]

Waterfoot?