Worst Place in Ireland

Culture
1

There’s still a few counties I’ve never been to but the two places that stick out for me as being the worst places I’ve been in Ireland are Shannon and Limerick Junction.

Shannon is one absolute fooking shithole. I had to work there for a couple of months every year from 2002-2006 and the time spent down there was some of the most depressing of my life.

Limerick Junction is that spot in the middle of fooking nowhere (actually in Tipp I think)where the train stops before heading onto Cork and if you’re going to Limerick you have to get out. In theory the Limerick train is meant to be waiting for you on the adjoining platform but many’s the Sunday night in January I stood in the freezing cold and pi$$ing rain on the platform there with no sign of the Limerick train arriving. It sends chills down my spine still - Limerick Junction could take you away (copyright Damien Dempsey).

But Shannon’s an incredibly weird place. One time we went driving around at lunchtime, rocko at the wheel and myself navigating, trying to find the town centre only to discover there is none.

The place is like a big square and there’s just rows of non-descript houses and then in the middle there’s a Dunne’s Stores and a Tesco’s or something and this knacker pub called Knight’s - it’s like a pub on a council housing estate in England and reminds me of the one in Shameless. We went there one day for lunch and everyone just stared us out of it for the hour. I text my Dad to let him know where we were in case we were abducted, tortured and killed so he’d at least be able to give some vital information to the Gardai.

One day we asked one of the lads in the office about other lunch options and he told us to check out the Golf Club and then wrote out directions for us. We literally had to drive into the airport and practically down one of the runways and out some back gate to get there. A complete dump and like another world.

Another morning on our way into the office down there we noticed a massive truck parked on the side of the road beside the hotel on the outskirts of the town. There was a ready-made drive-thru McDonald’s structure tied onto the back of the truck. Later that week we were driving down the road again and the McDonald’s structure had been planted into the ground on the side of the road and it was already open for business. It looked fooking ridiculous.

Then there’s the huge industrial estate and the constant greyness of the place. It got to the stage where having to head down there every January was having an adverse impact on Christmas for me with my head spinning at the thought of having to go back to that dump.

However, it must be said that in Ballycasey Craft and Design Centre we eventually found a gem of a place for home cooked meals. Kudos to Lily, Frances, Trish and all the girls - the autumn crumble was off the hook, off the chain.

1 Like
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Two great calls Bandage.

I only had the pleasure of Limerick Junction twice but what a godforsaken shithole it is. You’d think they’d build something like an airport transit lounge with loads of seats, real-time train information and catering facilities because it’s supposed to function as a transfer stop. Instead they just built an exposed platform with nothing else at all and leave you to stand there.

I’d forgotten about some of those parts of Shannon - Knight’s and the golf club. The Supermacs in that “shopping centre” takes some beating as well though. Freezing cold, ridculously slow service and horrible food. Ballycasey is a world away.

3

How goes it folks?

Its been a while since I’ve checked out these pages and even longer since I’ve posted. I like the new lay-out…never was a fan of the black background previously in place.

Anyway felt the need to reply to this post given my vast experience of one of the forementioned shit holes. Having spent about I’d say a total of six months in Shannon over the last three years I can concur with your views that Shannon is without a doubt the biggest shit hole in the country…no exception! Appartently its one of the first ‘planned’ town in Ireland. Great planning guys! As bangage says it not not like any other town in the country where you have a main street with a few shops and pubs etc. Shannon has a shopping centre called ‘Shannon town centre’ with a couple of pubs and Suppermacs surrounding it and then you have a petrol station and a McDonalds down the road. Thats it appart from the airport and industial estate of course. Definitely the most depressing place I’ve ever had the missfortune to spend a period of time.

Speaking of Ballycasey, indeed it is a fantasic establishment and is set appart from the rest of Shannon ‘town’ by isolating itself in the countryside. In fact I had lunch there myself yesterday…a delightful homemade lassagne. The only recommendation I could possibly give anyone being stuck in the area. My bests advise to anyone thinking of going to Shannon though is…AVOID!

10-4

DT

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Welcome back Timofte - a true prodigal son has returned.

Great to hear that news about Ballycasey. Somebody told me recently they’d closed down the restaurant out there so delighted to hear they were talking balls. You have to try the autumn crumble - ask Frances for a dollop of vanilla ice-cream on top and it’s pure heaven.

Got this from An Fear Rua - someone’s description of Athlone:

I lived in Athlone for four years, worst four years in my life.

The places is full of settled travellers and small farmers who
lost their farms and a new cross breed of travellers and farmers,
the perfect mix of scum and redneck, that commonly have
addictions to the heroin the army brings through the barracks
from the Lebanon on the sly. Athlone has a raging smack problem,
but is a totally landlocked town, so nobody could understand how
such huge amounts of smack was getting into this small provincial
town… why go to the trouble of bringing it from Dublin, Cork or
Galway to some midlands dive when you could sell it in these big
coastal city, this was along the lines of the general thinking on
the matter.

Turns out some soldiers coming back from the Lebanon were loading
the tanks full of Heroin, at this time Athlone was where
everything coming and going from the Leb was cleared. Rise in
smack problem Q.E.D.

The culture shock, especially from somewhere civil like Dublin,
is intense. The place was bloody feral back in the 90s.

One year Scheer and Watercress came to Athlone RTC… it was
poorly attended so for the next three years of my time there they
had Abbaesque on instead…

mimes slashing wrists

And you have that lovely country thing of the locals hating
students EVEN THOUGH the students are one of the few things
bringing money into the town.

Of a friday, in Athlone, around 9pm you would hear for miles
around the trundle of taxis coming from every farm house and tin
roofed shack in the surrounding counties… all heading for
“BOZO’S” night club in Athlone.

Where once in side all the men, identically dressed in blue jeans
and white blue check shirts with the back of the collar flicked
up (why?!?), they would savage an unholy feed of booze, molest
women in the most base manners, savage more booze, puke on each
other, puke on everyone else (it’s amazing how socially accepted
vomit is in Athlone), then all the ones who weren’t off to
sexually assault some poor lass down a side street, would head up
to Supermacs to beat several shades of sh*t out of anyone who
looked liked they deserved it.

I assure everyone these boys were all country stock true and
true. Best friends would paste each other into the pavement using
their fists. But by the next week it’d all be forgotten.

Granted most of these sorts generally move to Dublin for college,
go to DCU, TCD or UCD or somewhere sh*te like that, doss around
on the grant, and generally become the sort of assholes who ring
up looking for last months invoice, or the sort of schmucks the
bank sends you too when you havn’t paid you student loan in a
year or two. This would point to while older pubs in the country
are superior, supposidly cause all the ass holes have moved to
Lucan and are trying to outdo each other with gimicky kitchens
and spoiled children.

I lived with a country fella down in Athlone who used to cook two
dinners when he was cooking, he’d lay both dinners out on two
plates, just as if he was serving to people… then he would eat
one and put the other one in his press (not the fridge… the
press) where it remain till dinner time the next day when he’d
pull it out bing it in the microwave and tuck in.

I liked living in the country… however Athlone was the most
depressing place on earth, constantly grey of sky and suspicous
of odour. But no matter how mental you thought you were going or
how drunkly stoned and depraved your life was becoming you only
had to have a quick look aorund you and realise that most folk
there were a BILLION times worse off then you!

I firmly believe Athlone was built on some bad energy line or
something, or a Indian burial ground, or the very gateway to the
pit of hell itself.

The whole town needs to be nuked from orbit.

5

I’m familiar with the Autumn Crumble alright…very nice indeed…only ever had it with cream so will have to ask Frances for some icecream next time. Its a popular dessert…wasn’t any left for me yesterday!

About Athlone I hear its another one of these places in Ireland one should never visit! My flatmate spent some time there on audit and now calls the place Athlonely!

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This is a no-brainer.

Borris in Ossory, the god forsaken sh1t hole where the bus to Limerick stops so people can take a p1ss.

And that says it all really. The reason most people will come into contact with this ‘location’ is the need to excrete.

Bus Eireann have obviously done some kind of deal with the hotel so the buses can pull into the carpark and the travellers use the jacks. I suppose the trade off is that they buy exorbitantly priced cans of coke and dairy milks in the little shop/bar/thing in the hotel.

So some poor unfortunate teenager has the job of working behind this bar, selling warm soft drinks and limp ham sandwichs to weary travellers while having to continually make ten minute snippets of conversation with the freaking weirdos that are the bus drivers. Truly this is the nadir of the human existence.

Would the constant flow of service users encourage the hotel to provide a decent jacks? Would it my bollocks. Where’s the incentive? The poor fuckers are bursting for a slash, aren’t going to hang around, are never coming back and basically have no choice. So lets follow the old Irish country tradition and gouge the bejaysus out of the poor bastards. Needless to say, the jacks are horrendous. In my exeperience, the smell has only been topped by the bang out of the bogs in thefreekick.com’s astro team’s changing rooms. I can only imagine the sheer terror if you needed to take a dump.

And like all truly dreadful Irish midland towns, Borris in Ossary has that unnerving quality to it. It’s just too lifeless, too depressed, too hope-forsaken. There’s nothing but malaise for anyone existing there. And that makes you nervous. It’s hard to imagine how a significant proportion of the lonely, weird, alcholic old men aren’t going to be serial killers. And if the smelly old weirdos don’t molest you, the boredom-crazed teens will bottle you from behind as you try and find a shop selling the Irish Times.

It’s truly awful and the whole miserable experience is compounded by the awkwardness of having to hang out in the side entrance of a hotel for ten minutes with a whole busload of equally disspirited stangers. Try not to make eye contact and get sucked into a semi conversation with the poor confused Spaniards who look like they’ve been abducted and woken up a horror movie. It’s fake text time all the way.

I hate Borris In Ossory with all of my soul. It makes you look forward to Limerick.

7

Fats wrote:

This is a no-brainer.

Borris in Ossory, the god forsaken sh1t hole where the bus to Limerick stops so people can take a p1ss.

And that says it all really. The reason most people will come into contact with this ‘location’ is the need to excrete.

Bus Eireann have obviously done some kind of deal with the hotel so the buses can pull into the carpark and the travellers use the jacks. I suppose the trade off is that they buy exorbitantly priced cans of coke and dairy milks in the little shop/bar/thing in the hotel.

So some poor unfortunate teenager has the job of working behind this bar, selling warm soft drinks and limp ham sandwichs to weary travellers while having to continually make ten minute snippets of conversation with the freaking weirdos that are the bus drivers. Truly this is the nadir of the human existence.

Would the constant flow of service users encourage the hotel to provide a decent jacks? Would it my bollocks. Where’s the incentive? The poor fuckers are bursting for a slash, aren’t going to hang around, are never coming back and basically have no choice. So lets follow the old Irish country tradition and gouge the bejaysus out of the poor bastards. Needless to say, the jacks are horrendous. In my exeperience, the smell has only been topped by the bang out of the bogs in thefreekick.com’s astro team’s changing rooms. I can only imagine the sheer terror if you needed to take a dump.

And like all truly dreadful Irish midland towns, Borris in Ossary has that unnerving quality to it. It’s just too lifeless, too depressed, too hope-forsaken. There’s nothing but malaise for anyone existing there. And that makes you nervous. It’s hard to imagine how a significant proportion of the lonely, weird, alcholic old men aren’t going to be serial killers. And if the smelly old weirdos don’t molest you, the boredom-crazed teens will bottle you from behind as you try and find a shop selling the Irish Times.

It’s truly awful and the whole miserable experience is compounded by the awkwardness of having to hang out in the side entrance of a hotel for ten minutes with a whole busload of equally disspirited stangers. Try not to make eye contact and get sucked into a semi conversation with the poor confused Spaniards who look like they’ve been abducted and woken up a horror movie. It’s fake text time all the way.

I hate Borris In Ossory with all of my soul. It makes you look forward to Limerick.

Quality post Fats.

I know the shithole well from my trips to Limerick.

There’s something about those midland towns that’s souldestroying alright - from Athlone to Tullamore to Athy to Borris In Ossory and so on.

Complete and utter dumps.

8

Gotta be Moate for me for the sames reasons as Athlone but it’s worse because one can’t bypass it on the Galway/Dublin journey. It’s a little hovel and is now the only place that is a real bottleneck on the N6. Furthermore, I got fined on Friday night for a dodgy overtaking manoeuvre coming towards Moate. Fooking unmarked police car. Hole hole hole.

9

Fats wrote:

This is a no-brainer.

Borris in Ossory, the god forsaken sh1t hole where the bus to Limerick stops so people can take a p1ss.

And that says it all really. The reason most people will come into contact with this ‘location’ is the need to excrete.

Bus Eireann have obviously done some kind of deal with the hotel so the buses can pull into the carpark and the travellers use the jacks. I suppose the trade off is that they buy exorbitantly priced cans of coke and dairy milks in the little shop/bar/thing in the hotel.

So some poor unfortunate teenager has the job of working behind this bar, selling warm soft drinks and limp ham sandwichs to weary travellers while having to continually make ten minute snippets of conversation with the freaking weirdos that are the bus drivers. Truly this is the nadir of the human existence.

Would the constant flow of service users encourage the hotel to provide a decent jacks? Would it my bollocks. Where’s the incentive? The poor fuckers are bursting for a slash, aren’t going to hang around, are never coming back and basically have no choice. So lets follow the old Irish country tradition and gouge the bejaysus out of the poor bastards. Needless to say, the jacks are horrendous. In my exeperience, the smell has only been topped by the bang out of the bogs in thefreekick.com’s astro team’s changing rooms. I can only imagine the sheer terror if you needed to take a dump.

And like all truly dreadful Irish midland towns, Borris in Ossary has that unnerving quality to it. It’s just too lifeless, too depressed, too hope-forsaken. There’s nothing but malaise for anyone existing there. And that makes you nervous. It’s hard to imagine how a significant proportion of the lonely, weird, alcholic old men aren’t going to be serial killers. And if the smelly old weirdos don’t molest you, the boredom-crazed teens will bottle you from behind as you try and find a shop selling the Irish Times.

It’s truly awful and the whole miserable experience is compounded by the awkwardness of having to hang out in the side entrance of a hotel for ten minutes with a whole busload of equally disspirited stangers. Try not to make eye contact and get sucked into a semi conversation with the poor confused Spaniards who look like they’ve been abducted and woken up a horror movie. It’s fake text time all the way.

I hate Borris In Ossory with all of my soul. It makes you look forward to Limerick.

I’ve just been informed by a member on here who can’t figure out how to post messages that the hotel in Borris in Ossory has now closed.

Indeed its website www.leixcountyhotel.com is no longer available.

Not sure where the buses stop now.

10

if I may apply my 2 cents worth.
Kells in county meath…
anytime I’ve driven through it the place reminds me of royston vasey in comedy programme league of gentleman.
something about that place just doesnt add up for me.

11

therock67 wrote:

Fats wrote:

[quote]This is a no-brainer.

Borris in Ossory, the god forsaken sh1t hole where the bus to Limerick stops so people can take a p1ss.

And that says it all really. The reason most people will come into contact with this ‘location’ is the need to excrete.

Bus Eireann have obviously done some kind of deal with the hotel so the buses can pull into the carpark and the travellers use the jacks. I suppose the trade off is that they buy exorbitantly priced cans of coke and dairy milks in the little shop/bar/thing in the hotel.

So some poor unfortunate teenager has the job of working behind this bar, selling warm soft drinks and limp ham sandwichs to weary travellers while having to continually make ten minute snippets of conversation with the freaking weirdos that are the bus drivers. Truly this is the nadir of the human existence.

Would the constant flow of service users encourage the hotel to provide a decent jacks? Would it my bollocks. Where’s the incentive? The poor fuckers are bursting for a slash, aren’t going to hang around, are never coming back and basically have no choice. So lets follow the old Irish country tradition and gouge the bejaysus out of the poor bastards. Needless to say, the jacks are horrendous. In my exeperience, the smell has only been topped by the bang out of the bogs in thefreekick.com’s astro team’s changing rooms. I can only imagine the sheer terror if you needed to take a dump.

And like all truly dreadful Irish midland towns, Borris in Ossary has that unnerving quality to it. It’s just too lifeless, too depressed, too hope-forsaken. There’s nothing but malaise for anyone existing there. And that makes you nervous. It’s hard to imagine how a significant proportion of the lonely, weird, alcholic old men aren’t going to be serial killers. And if the smelly old weirdos don’t molest you, the boredom-crazed teens will bottle you from behind as you try and find a shop selling the Irish Times.

It’s truly awful and the whole miserable experience is compounded by the awkwardness of having to hang out in the side entrance of a hotel for ten minutes with a whole busload of equally disspirited stangers. Try not to make eye contact and get sucked into a semi conversation with the poor confused Spaniards who look like they’ve been abducted and woken up a horror movie. It’s fake text time all the way.

I hate Borris In Ossory with all of my soul. It makes you look forward to Limerick.

I’ve just been informed by a member on here who can’t figure out how to post messages that the hotel in Borris in Ossory has now closed.

Indeed its website www.leixcountyhotel.com is no longer available.

Not sure where the buses stop now.[/quote]

Due to a multiple murder or pending insurance arson probably.

Still, it’s good news.

12

even as a staunch clare man i have to agree that shannon is a hole…hate everything about the place, all the roads, nothing in the town the 3 or 4 pubs are all shit and thanks to shannon(busted my ankle working out here last year) i missed the whole county championship and our run to an all ireland semi final…dman you shannon…damn you to hell…

although ballycasey is a nice spot but tis hidden away, newtown have a lovely football pitch down there…

other places that i hate:
clonmel
youghal
newcastle west

13

I remember this thread from AFR last year. The common consesus was that Athy was one of the worst in the world. One of my mates from Clonmel was on the bus through it one day on the way home. When stopped in Athy some lad standing at the bus stop tried to start rows with a couple of people on the bus for no reason. Its known to this day as the only place in Ireland where some lad will start a row with you while you’re sitting on a bus.

Limerick Junction is depressing but theres an oul shebeen pub about a 5-10 minute run away that sells cans of beer so thats what we used to use to pass the time and bring the cans back on the train.

Other notable contenders:

New Ross
Rathnew
Ashford

There’s loads more but cant think of them at the moment.

14

Ballyhaunis is pure evil,full of knackers in Arsenal shirts trying to kick off with anyone who’s interested.

Also,there’s a pub in Boyle,can’t recall the name,which reminded of me of the bar in Star Wars.

15

My new job has meant me travelling around the country a lot more.

The worst place I have been without a shadow of a doubt is Drogheda. One of my best mates is from the place so I better watch what I say but in fairness it is a horrible spot. The vibe around the place is one of depression and the town itself seems to have to no plan to it. There is a brand new shopping centre placed beside the local school which can only cause traffic chaos. There are fancy new buildings side by side with run down ones. The people are quite unfriendly and fairly rough looking to be honest. Everyone seems in a bad mood in the place.

Another horrible place is Tramore in Waterford. I never saw as many travellers in my life in one place. Upon departure from the local nightclub all the lads wait outside looking for fights. Horrible spot altogether. Also they have a dump situated right beside the beach down there which takes away from the whole holiday town vibe a bit!

16

really dont like New Ross. Shithole of a town. nothing in it, and no decent pubs anymore. Couple of restaurants are after opening up in recent years, but was nothing there for ages. No late opening take aways or anything because of all the fights and crap that would happen outside the colleseum shiteclub.

Was in newcastlewesht a few times too, and would see the same aul shit outside clubs when closing time hit. loads of dickwads around trying to start rows for kicks. would often have driven thru a lot of towns that look like hell holes, but dont really like commenting on a place unless I’ve actually been there for a while and given it a chance.

17

Wexford County Council have for years (and still are) been in negotiations to sell New Ross to Kilkenny. I’ll be happy the day that deal finally goes through.

18

I think the stumbling block is that if they manage to get rid of New Ross they’ll have to take on Arklow. They’re still trying to decide which one they’d prefer not to have.

19

I don’t really know anyone from the New Ross district so I didn’t realise until recently that it was regarded as being very rough. Why is it so? Is it local townie scumbags causing trouble or the more rural heads from the surrounding area coming in and trying to kick the crap out of people? Does it have late bars and nightclubs or what? I’ve never been out down there thankfully enough.

20

yeah townies really, and then a few knobends from very close by trying ot be townies. Used to have late opening places, but too many fights outside the aforementioned Colleseum which used to be in Hotel New Ross, or else at JR’s chipper which was on the quay. Then you have the really skanger pubs around like where that poor Swedish chap got the shit kicked out of him and was killed. Used to go out there when I was younger, and then stopped when it got out of hand and the guards were constantly trying to stop the late licenses there. Not sure how it is these days really as I havent been out there in years.