**WINNER - KILKEEL!** Biggest Sh*thole in Ireland (2018 Edition)

[Fionntamhnach]

*** THE FINAL PUBLIC VOTE HAS DECLARED KILKEEL, CO. DOWN TO THE THE BIGGEST SH*THOLE IN IRELAND FOR 2018 WITH PORTADOWN, CO. ARMAGH AS RUNNERS UP. THANKS TO EVERYONE WHOM VOTED & CONTRIBUTED TO THIS THREAD ***

P.S AS I SAID BELOW, DON'T TAKE THIS THREAD TOOOOO SERIOUSLY... 

FOR THE NICEST TOWN IN IRELAND THREAD, CLICK OR TAP HERE TO TAKE YOU THERE...

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It's just over a decade when this question was last asked here and back then the general consensus was Larne, Bundoran, Granard (in fact near enough the whole of counties Longford & Cavan), Castlebar (thanks to a very sensitive contributor) and Craigavon, in particular Beirut the Legahory estate. With honourable mentions to Athy, Dundalk, Strabane, Lurgan, Clonmel and few others I can't be arsed typing out.

Since then the property bubble has burst, the Celtic Tiger has been shot and stuffed, the Republic of Ireland has gone through a turbulent economic period and so on. So it's worth asking has much changed in this regard - have certain places become even worse sh*tholes? Is there some place that ten years ago was a nice spot that has now got so bad that they could twin with Compton, Damascus or Mogadishu? What places have just got no hope whatsoever that if a meteorite hit it, it would cause hundreds of thousands of Euros in improvements? I think at this time it's worth revisiting.

Simple rules - generally looking for villages, towns or parts of major cities across all 32 counties, please give reasons as that makes the thread more entertaining, remember that pretty much every built-up settlement of at least a few thousand people will have at least one "bad" spot, and don't take this thread or nominations toooooo seriously! 

To throw my thoughts in...

Castlederg - Strabane, along with Lurgan, has for quite some time been a big punching bag whenever anyone brings up the issue of sh*tholes. Now I can't speak too much about Lurgan but over the last decade IMO Strabane has come on quite well for itself. It still has issues regarding deprevation but the reputation of the town has definitely improved. On the other hand it's little brother a few miles down the road has been going the opposite direction especially in terms of sectarian tensions but also any time I'm going through there the whole town looks just looks dirty beyond its town centre "diamond". To explain it a bit better, I've a relative who's a PSNI officer based in Derry. He has told me that he enjoys going on patrols in the city, has no real hassle going about Strabane but dreads being sent to Castlederg.

Elphin - now it's been a good few years since I was there to attend a football game and it might have improved a bit since then, but this place stands out to me as the most miserable, depressing spot I've ever been to anywhere in Ireland. Maybe the weather that day didn't help, maybe most of the buildings I seen were just empty shells or needed a good painting, maybe it was bumping into certain locals whom were a cross of the main characters of The League Of Gentlemen and Father Stone from Father Ted. Whatever it was it's left a lasting mark on me. To Hell or to Elphin.

Moygashel - some posters here would simply list this place because of its demographics. I list it here simply because any village which has on it's main street for years a banner commerating the death of a UVF member who blew himself to pieces planting the prematurely exploding bomb in the Miami Showband massacre quite frankly deserves to be labelled a sh*thole regardless of anything else.

Clones - let's be honest, if it wasn't for St. Tiernach's Park this town would be barely acknowleged for its existence outside of west Monaghan and South Fermanagh. The town literally lives for the Ulster Football Championship. Take that away and you've got a small town that has been struggling for decades as many border areas have been with nothing of it of note other than Barry McGuigan coming from there. It's like an extreme example of certain shops, pubs, restaurants etc. pinning their hopes for a big December customer taking to make up for the other 11 months of the year barely holding things together.

Bundoran - Recent visits to the place some call Fundoran (?) hasn't changed my mind much about it. The beach is uninspiring unless you're into surfing, the town is tacky & expensive, in a few of the pubs you'd be fortunate to come out of them without being struck by a barstool, and once the 1st September hits there is utterly no soul to the place until the May/June bank holidays arrive at the very earliest. I can see some attraction if you're a parent with young children, but not really much else. It's Nordie equivalent, Portrush, would also make this list if it wasn't for it lying just a couple of miles from Portstewart which is a clear-as-day much better place that you can quickly sprint over to. Unfortunately, Bundoran has no such close neighbour which can help redeem it.

[Puckoon]

Interesting question Fionn, primarily because of your locale. Obviously it's been a while since I've lived at home but local news has always alluded to a serious antisocial behavior problem in Fintona and by extrapolation it would long have been regarded as a bit of a shithole. Perhaps it's been cleaned up of late but I lived across the street from a former policeman who has since retired - and Fintona was his unit's problem for the better part of the 1995 to date. When he wasn't looking under his car before getting into it.

Some serious posters gone from that original thread.

[Tubberman]

Frenchpark, Ballinagare, Tulsk - Co. Roscommon

[Orchard park]

carracastle and all west of it

[Feckitt]

Kilkeel in County Down is the most depressing town in Ireland. 
It has everything going for it, It should be the Carlingford of the North.  It is picturesquely situated where the Mountains of Mourne sweep down to the sea.  It gets the beautiful evening sun on nearby sandy beaches.  The Silent Valley and Spelga Dam are nearby.  It's got a harbour, and a lovely river running through it.
However the town is a complete shithole thanks to the narrowminded sectarian bitterness of most of its unionist bigwigs.  The town is decked out like Nuremberg in 1936.  Para flags, painted kerbstones, UVF flegs are all over the place.  An intimidating sight to any visitors and a depressing existence for ALL of its residents.

[Fionntamhnach]

Interesting question Fionn, primarily because of your locale. Obviously it's been a while since I've lived at home but local news has always alluded to a serious antisocial behavior problem in Fintona and by extrapolation it would long have been regarded as a bit of a shithole. Perhaps it's been cleaned up of late but I lived across the street from a former policeman who has since retired - and Fintona was his unit's problem for the better part of the 1995 to date. When he wasn't looking under his car before getting into it.

Some serious posters gone from that original thread.

That's fair comment Puck. There was a growing problem involving drug dealing in the place from around the early 90's or so that often came to a head later that decade and into a fair bit of the noughties, not to mention a growing anti-social problem which was rooted in a few families in the area whom were able to silently intimidate a lot of other people and were in likelyhood a bunch of ten pound touts with the troubles still fresh in the memory. I still remember some of the stuff that went on including a van (allegedly containing a high street value of Columbia's finest) being shot at out the Dromore Road, a vigilante group that were going to "deal" with the boys from a certain family until the cops managed to get through a broken glass barricade, a bunch of joyriders crashing their car about 20 metres from my front door then setting it alight, and so on.

While there's still the occasional troublemaker, most of the original ones that gave grief in the 90's and 00's have either grown up, moved away, in jail, became neutered junkies etc. where it's a lot quieter compared to say 15 to 20 years ago where opening the "In The Courts" section of the Ulster Herald every Thursday would guarantee you that you would read about at least one person from Fintona being up for something. It also perhaps helped that when a number of Polish and Lithuanian men moved in during the mid '00s they didn't take much shit from them.

Nowadays, while Ashfield Gardens can still be hairaising on occasion things tend to be more peaceful. That's not to say there hasn't been some problems but they're far from simply being a problem restricted to South Central Fintona. All the rural bank branches are getting closed in West Tyrone & much of the west of the Bann, most standalone Post Offices are now being moved into shops and supermarkets, Police stations in most villages have been closing on a gradual basis, long established family run businesses have been closing up because the owners are now at retirement age and none of their children, or anyone else really, wants to take it on etc. But again that's not just Fintona - Dromore, Irvinestown, Carrickmore, Beragh, Gortin, Newtownstewart and the smaller villages still are all in that same boat. That's just a sign of the times, a case of having to adapt or be left behind.

Would I say Fintona's now a better place than it was say 10-20 years ago? I'd say yes, despite the closure of some long-run businesses some new ones have sprung up in their place, the town is generally tidy as long as the council send someone round to remove dog shite from the pavements more than once a month (or at least that was the case 1-2 years ago), there's a fair bit to do in terms of activities that can be expected of a place that's the size of Fintona. Indeed Andrew Short should be given a welcome nod for helping host a number of events at the Ecclesville Centre over the years. Just one thing about the local council - the sooner that pay-toilet that was dumped on us (no pun intended) because no one at the Scarffe's Entry car park in Omagh was bothering to use it, the better. It will not be missed.

[Farrandeelin]

An early nomination for Kiltimagh. Looks dank even when passing straight through, then the narrowness of the side streets taking you to Knock and Kilkelly.

[Maroon Manc]

This thread has some serious potential

[brokencrossbar1]

This thread has some serious potential

The mucksavage thread for towns!!!

[lurganblue]

Portadown. Complete sh*thole. I'm just amazed that if wasn't on the list from 10 years ago!! Majority of the town are backwards DUP voters and the rest have been so long enclaved that it has affected their sanity. 

[Cunny Funt]

The majority of rural towns and villages in the west of Ireland have become shitholes now because they have been allowed to rot while money and jobs has been pumped into other places. 

[BennyCake]

Lisburn - bigoted hellhole.

[omaghjoe]

Interesting question Fionn, primarily because of your locale. Obviously it's been a while since I've lived at home but local news has always alluded to a serious antisocial behavior problem in Fintona and by extrapolation it would long have been regarded as a bit of a shithole. Perhaps it's been cleaned up of late but I lived across the street from a former policeman who has since retired - and Fintona was his unit's problem for the better part of the 1995 to date. When he wasn't looking under his car before getting into it.

Some serious posters gone from that original thread.

That's fair comment Puck. There was a growing problem involving drug dealing in the place from around the early 90's or so that often came to a head later that decade and into a fair bit of the noughties, not to mention a growing anti-social problem which was rooted in a few families in the area whom were able to silently intimidate a lot of other people and were in likelyhood a bunch of ten pound touts with the troubles still fresh in the memory. I still remember some of the stuff that went on including a van (allegedly containing a high street value of Columbia's finest) being shot at out the Dromore Road, a vigilante group that were going to "deal" with the boys from a certain family until the cops managed to get through a broken glass barricade, a bunch of joyriders crashing their car about 20 metres from my front door then setting it alight, and so on.

While there's still the occasional troublemaker, most of the original ones that gave grief in the 90's and 00's have either grown up, moved away, in jail, became neutered junkies etc. where it's a lot quieter compared to say 15 to 20 years ago where opening the "In The Courts" section of the Ulster Herald every Thursday would guarantee you that you would read about at least one person from Fintona being up for something. It also perhaps helped that when a number of Polish and Lithuanian men moved in during the mid '00s they didn't take much shit from them.

Nowadays, while Ashfield Gardens can still be hairaising on occasion things tend to be more peaceful. That's not to say there hasn't been some problems but they're far from simply being a problem restricted to South Central Fintona. All the rural bank branches are getting closed in West Tyrone & much of the west of the Bann, most standalone Post Offices are now being moved into shops and supermarkets, Police stations in most villages have been closing on a gradual basis, long established family run businesses have been closing up because the owners are now at retirement age and none of their children, or anyone else really, wants to take it on etc. But again that's not just Fintona - Dromore, Irvinestown, Carrickmore, Beragh, Gortin, Newtownstewart and the smaller villages still are all in that same boat. That's just a sign of the times, a case of having to adapt or be left behind.

Would I say Fintona's now a better place than it was say 10-20 years ago? I'd say yes, despite the closure of some long-run businesses some new ones have sprung up in their place, the town is generally tidy as long as the council send someone round to remove dog shite from the pavements more than once a month (or at least that was the case 1-2 years ago), there's a fair bit to do in terms of activities that can be expected of a place that's the size of Fintona. Indeed Andrew Short should be given a welcome nod for helping host a number of events at the Ecclesville Centre over the years. Just one thing about the local council - the sooner that pay-toilet that was dumped on us (no pun intended) because no one at the Scarffe's Entry car park in Omagh was bothering to use it, the better. It will not be missed.

Puck beat me to it , interesting read, had to laugh at the bit in bold.

Also to be fair to Fintona in terms of community relations without a doubt an example to for the rest of the North. Tho an old fired told me that inadvertently this was the source of Fintona's problems... as during the troubles "antisocialites" that were run out of their local areas by paramilitaries ended up getting rehoused in Fintona were there was no paramilitaries and got a free run to do whatever they wanted.

[Brick Tamlin]

Im gonna agree with previous and go with Kilkeel.
Its an absolute shitehouse of the highest order. My colleague was spot on when he said it should have everything going for it but really it is down to the ultra-unionist brethern who are missing a complete trick when it comes to developing and selling it as a destination to the masses.

Lurgan is and always will be a shitehouse too. You could group Portadown, Craigavon and Lurgan in there together as one big piddly stain on the map of Ireland.

[Shamrock Shore]

Still would have Granard quite high on any such list but for sheer out-and-out kip I would plump (perhaps surprisingly) for Kilgarvan in Kerry. Its nice location almost saves it, and it is close to the wonderful Kenmare, but really, only for the local gombeens, it would be have been swept under the Kerry rug ages ago.