Is dublin a kip??

Honkytonk

i have staggered drunk through dublin city center regularly for eight years. I have encountered aggression nearly every time, avoided it most of the time and been mugged once. Each time (including the mugging) I avoided a beating through not being aggressive myself. I suggest this is a better approach than trying to prove to "knackers " that you are not afraid of them. That approach works best in the movies.

jank

yea kip!
would never ever move there and many I know feel the same. Might have to go there next year for a small while

DrEvil

I think dublins a great place but there are problems.

Most common problems around seem to be because of civic irresonsibility and laziness and the only way they are solved is for each person to stop moaning about what's wrong and be pro-active in fixing the situation.

-How many times have I heard people complain about prices somewhere then immediately after still buy the thing!!! Why not just shop around??. Especially if your in the city centre there's NO EXCUSE not to. If everyone would do this and encourage others to then prices will come down, but that's too hard to do it's much easier to just complain and do nothing:rolleyes:.

-As for litter it would also be great if people 'pratice what they preach'. Also if you are with a group of friends and one of them drops some rubbish, you should let them know what you think and ask them to pick it up. 9 times out of 10 in my experience they usually will and there's ALWAYS at least one other person who will back you up as they're usually too afriad to be the first to disapprove

these are just two simple examples but Dublin has the potential to be a great place if people make an effort!

Deadwing

This place is hell. Seriously, hell.
Were being ripped off on everything we buy, just because they know they can get away with it, because of the irish 'dont make a fuss about it' type attitude. I heard ont he radio the other day a hotel in town charging 16 euro for 2 coffees. SIXTEEN EURO. Anywhere else thered be outrage over this kind of overpricing, but no, not in ireland and its 'dont rock the boat' mentality.
Its full of assh0les. Racist, scumbag, inbred morons. These idiots who cruise around in thier opel corsas, blasting 'in da club', wearing thier adidas tracksuits and thier fetching little knacker 'taches and soverign rings, and thier equally high class girlfriends with 'Anto is a bleedin roide' tattoed on thier asscracks, and cellulite stomachs hanging out over a pair of tracksuit bottoms they probably had to lube up just to fit into.
A government too concerned with where thier next brown envelope is coming from to actually do any good for the public. Too concerned with lining thier pockets, too scared to do anything that might be considered a little risky (like say, finding accommodation for homeless irish people before bending over backwards to give joe asylum seeker a free home). No politician is worth a **** and bertie ahern looks like a clown without makeup.
This place is hell.

Stark

Kip isn't really the correct term for Dublin. Now Glasgow, there's a kip. Dublin is a lovely scenic place, shame about the people.

Hotel charging €8 a coffee? Holy ****. I get pissed off at paying €2.10 for a coffee. Good points, although I do find the place tolerable despite its faults. You do have a good choice of places to buy stuff as one poster put it. There's usually a few small book/cd stores where you can pick up stuff cheaper than in HMV/Virgin. And a good few other places where you can pick up stuff that I'd otherwise have to order online if I was still living in Cork. We still have the knacker problem in Cork, and the population seems to have grown exponentially over the past 3 months, so that there seems to be about 5 times as many knackers/skangers/scobes on the streets of Cork than there seems to be on the streets of Dublin these days. So give me Dublin over Cork.

What also pisses me off is you can't walk 5 metres in town on a Saturday without someone looking for your money. Headphones are a compulsory accessory so you can pretend you don't hear people (they needn't be plugged into anything ).

Deadwing

*L* good points stark (especialy the headphones!)
I just tend to get riled up thinking about these things

Dr. Loon

Originally posted by Paddy20
Hey Loony,

Cop yourself on, before some young person believes your claptrap. You really sound as though you are living in your own fantasyland where real people 'do not' get attacked, stabbed, kicked too death etc, as they do in Dublin. Which is the subject of this thread.

I didn't say people don't get attacked, so don't go making shíte up Paddy. I've been mugged once in Dublin - in Raheny. I was soo drunk I didn't really know I was being mugged. I was compliant and handed over my watch and a snickers bar They let me walk on. The next day I discovered a guy had his head smashed with a hammer in the exact same location. I was lucky.

Since then I've been started on once in the City Centre... by a psycho. Most situations where I've encountered scum bags - no matter how many. I either ignore them or stare them out of it. It's worked for me so far.

I was battered to crap in Dundalk by five lads I had been chatting away to in a pub quite happily, for no reason I can think of - there's a real kip.

eth0_

Originally posted by Civilian_Target
Back to topic for a mo, Dublin isn't a kip. Try Belfast, and you'll find its unkiplike.

That is boll*cks. You're actually safer being out on the town in Belfast at night because the place is crawling with CCTV cameras (same as any other town/city in the UK....why don't we have that here? It really does work as a deterrent) and obviously you have a bigger police presence (although tbh it's not hard to have a bigger police presence than Dublin city centre). It's the same as anywhere, if you're not from a town you're more than likely going to walk into an area that is known to be dodgy (such as Sandy Row, a loyalist stronghold in Belfast that's practically in the city centre, easy for non Belfast people to walk into).

The biggest thing that pisses me off about Dublin are the charity collectors. They're like parasites. Why should I have to pretend to be on the phone or sending a text so they don't approach me? They should be banned from the streets, it's not like most of them even give a sh1t about the charity they're working for, they're all students attracted by the pretty good wage these charities pay.

I would have said Dublin was a total kip 3 or so years ago but it has come on leaps and bounds in the past couple of years, O'Connell St is no longer the ugly dive it once was, and it's not embarrasing to have it as the main thoroughfare in the capital city anymore.

eth0_

Originally posted by Civilian_Target
Back to topic for a mo, Dublin isn't a kip. Try Belfast, and you'll find its unkiplike.

That is boll*cks. When was the last time you were in Belfast? You're actually safer being out on the town in Belfast at night because the place is crawling with CCTV cameras (same as any other town/city in the UK....why don't we have that here? It really does work as a deterrent) and obviously you have a bigger police presence (although tbh it's not hard to have a bigger police presence than Dublin city centre). It's the same as anywhere, if you're not from a town you're more than likely going to walk into an area that is known to be dodgy (such as Sandy Row, a loyalist stronghold in Belfast that's practically in the city centre, easy for non Belfast people to walk into).

The biggest thing that pisses me off about Dublin are the charity collectors. They're like parasites. Why should I have to pretend to be on the phone or sending a text so they don't approach me? They should be banned from the streets, it's not like most of them even give a sh1t about the charity they're working for, they're all students attracted by the pretty good wage these charities pay.

I would have said Dublin was a total kip 3 or so years ago but it has come on leaps and bounds in the past couple of years, O'Connell St is no longer the ugly dive it once was, and it's not embarrasing to have it as the main thoroughfare in the capital city anymore.

eth0_

Originally posted by Civilian_Target
Back to topic for a mo, Dublin isn't a kip. Try Belfast, and you'll find its unkiplike.

That is boll*cks. When was the last time you were in Belfast? You're actually safer being out on the town in Belfast at night because the place is crawling with CCTV cameras (same as any other town/city in the UK....why don't we have that here? It really does work as a deterrent) and obviously you have a bigger police presence (although tbh it's not hard to have a bigger police presence than Dublin city centre). It's the same as anywhere, if you're not from a town you're more than likely going to walk into an area that is known to be dodgy (such as Sandy Row, a loyalist stronghold in Belfast that's practically in the city centre, easy for non Belfast people to walk into).

The biggest thing that pisses me off about Dublin are the charity collectors. They're like parasites. Why should I have to pretend to be on the phone or sending a text so they don't approach me? They should be banned from the streets, it's not like most of them even give a sh1t about the charity they're working for, they're all students attracted by the pretty good wage these charities pay.

I would have said Dublin was a total kip 3 or so years ago but it has come on leaps and bounds in the past couple of years, O'Connell St is no longer the ugly dive it once was, and it's not embarrasing to have it as the main thoroughfare in the capital city anymore.

Kobie

OK, OK, I heard you the first time.

:rolleyes:

Definetly a Kip. Lived there for a year. Great Nightlife, but theres way too much scum walking the streets. Fearful for my life? Not really. I'm from Athlone originally and I've seen alot worse, but I'd be very wary of who's on the streets around me.

Slutmonkey57b

More police on the streets of Belfast = not a kip?

I think you'll find that the reason there are so many police on the streets of Belfast is precicely BECAUSE it's such a kip it's populated by psychotic terrorist drug running bombers. It wasn't that long ago it was the army on the streets. Personally, seeing the army on the streets doesn't make me think "Oh what a lovely sense of safety. How clever and pre-emptivly planned having the army on the streets is, just on the off chance there might be some totally random act of violence. I'm sure it's not a BIG FAT SIGN THERES SOMETHING WRONG. No."

Dublin is a total kip. It's less of a kip than Limerick or Cork, but that's saying precisely nothing. And newcastle? You must be joking. Fat geordie slags gagging on chips every night of the week? No thanks. Dublin may be a cultural wasteland but compared to the North of England it's Babylon.

DrEvil

it's not like most of them even give a sh1t about the charity they're working for, they're all students attracted by the pretty good wage these charities pay.

what do you base this on? i've collected a few times for charties in town and was never paid once and neither were anyone else doing it

Borzoi

Part of the problem is our police force.

Coming out of a restaurant in Melbourne, in the car part was a mouth 16yr old, my cousin, an off-duty cop, went over to him. Turns out the kid has a knife, he's arrested and 5mins later the cop car comes and takes him away.

Compared to O'Connel St, where I've seen bottles land between me and a group of gards 10ft further on. Having seen who through it (Btw from outside DrQuirkes to the median strip) they ignored them. So what message does this send?

pork99

Originally posted by Minesajackdaniels
I think Dublin needs to seriously get its act together. There's a political element in Ireland who firmly believe that this "Ireland of the welcomes" crap excuses a lot of really inexcusable elements of the city. I've lived in a few cities, Dublin included, for long periods of time and I really think the place is a shambles.

Misdirected public spending because of a government who don't listen to public opinion. (If we didn't have one spike in Dublin perhaps we could have spent something on the heroin problem and have no spikes in Dublin at all!)

And it's just not "fine" to take this utterly farcical "Paddy off de boat" mentality and joke about it when things aren't done properly. The port tunnel's the wrong size, oh "dey'll just have te build smaller lorries!" It's a city surrounded by two-lane motorways with impressively wide central reserves ("Oh! Paddy I wonder who we'll give the contract to to widen dis road in foive years?")

And everybody bitches about the country, the price of everything, and the politicians, all of the time. "How badly this country is being run" is generally not one of the top-ten topics of pub conversation in other major cities.

You are right on the money there. Especially with regard to planning. Corrupt planning = bad planning.

I'm from Dublin, lived here most of my life and I don't think I would live anywhere else. But that is because my roots are here; friends, family etc. I know that objectively there are better places to live but I'm too settled here to think of living anywhere else.

It's interesting to get the opinions of foreigners. Some Russians told me that they find the place fairly dirty and derelict with crappy roads. I did tell them that it was much worse a few years ago. Apparently in Moscow if you leave a building derelict & empty there you start having to pay extra tax on it. The longer it's derelict the more tax you pay. (Maybe that's only on main streets or something though - I have seen photos of Moscow were it looked pretty shabby.)

Some Canadians told me that there was indeed a "Serious lack of non-alcoholic activities". One Canadian - he'd lived in LA before he came to Dublin - thought Dublin is rough but "fist fight rough, not drive-by shooting rough"

In my own experience I've only been hassled two or three times (so far!). Once when I was I student I was walking down Summerhill towards Parnell St. at about 10.30 in the evening (not a good idea) and I saw two young skangers in doorway. As I passed them the younger one came towards me and said "wha' toime is ih'". I noticed as he said this that he was taking a screwdriver out of his coat pocket. The second guy was sort of moving to back him up. I said "half ten" and kept walking. I put my forearm up to block the blow I was expecting - I knew if I stopped I would be dead-meat . I just kept going - he was shouting after me "I'll f*ckhin' burst ya'". Vermin.

On a couple of occasions I've been randomly punched in the face by drunks but they were too drunk to do me any harm.

One thing that keeps comong up is the lack of cops on the streets especially at night on weekends. Especially Temple Bar. There should be riot equipped units on standby there to clear up the streets after 12 on Friday & Saturday nights.

I know a few people who have been mugged for their phones on the same street over the space of a few years. Maybe theres a pattern there? If I'm aware of it through anecdotal evidence why aren't the Gardai out there running sting operations to round up the thieving scumbags? Once they are rounded up I would build a camp for them on one of these uninhabited Blasket Islands

drop them off there & forget about them

quank

Originally posted by Kingp35
I read over the weekend that 80% of peole are afraid to walk through dublin city at night for fear of being mugged.

80%... very close to the poll

Slutmonkey57b

On the Port Tunnel point, it has to be pointed out it ISNT the wrong size - the haulage association are bitching about it being too wide for some of the super-trucks used in the states and Australia, which they don't use here and never have, and never will (there's no economic advantage is using trucks that size in a country as tiny as this). In fact said lorries are too big to drive on Irish roads once they got outside the city anyway. So while a lot of things about the city are cr@p, that's not one of them I'm afraid.

hamsterboy

Used to live in Dublin and now living in Galway.
I sooooooo feel safer walking the streets in Galway.
In Dublin, my apart was broken into twice and one of those times the guy cut himself breakin our window and he was a known HIV sufferer, there was blood everywhere and it took them 2 days to make it safe.
Dublin is now just a cess pool and is only goin to get worse. There's very little that can be done about it as the amount of white thrash in the place is growing expedentially. When cities get to be as big a Dublin, these problems are faced and it's up to those in power to try to tackle them. Unfortunately, in this country, those in power are just money hungry muppets who couldn,t give a toss about anyone but themselves.
Hey, that's a great definition of a politician!

Stark

What do they do in other countries to tackle the problem? Didn't know the problem could be tackled. (since we're not allowed sterilize people ).

eth0_

Originally posted by Slutmonkey57b
More police on the streets of Belfast = not a kip?

I think you'll find that the reason there are so many police on the streets of Belfast is precicely BECAUSE it's such a kip it's populated by psychotic terrorist drug running bombers. It wasn't that long ago it was the army on the streets. Personally, seeing the army on the streets doesn't make me think "Oh what a lovely sense of safety. How clever and pre-emptivly planned having the army on the streets is, just on the off chance there might be some totally random act of violence. I'm sure it's not a BIG FAT SIGN THERES SOMETHING WRONG. No."

Erm...when was the last time you were in Belfast, mate? I'm from there and I went back last Autumn to work there and I only just moved back down south, I was working in the city centre and I never saw the army during the day apart from when the banks are having money delivered (but that happens in Dublin too), and once or twice at night. Now having lived there in the 80's and 90's, where there were army patrols outside my school all day, this is a BIG difference

AS for Newcastle...hahah! Newcastle is a kip too. I'd say Bristol and Oxford are the nicest cities in England myself.

tHE vAGGABOND

I currently live in London too, but I would not say dublin is any less safe than here, or america or anywhere. If you are walking home at 3am, other people will be sh1tfaced, and as Robert DeNiro said anyway..

all the animals come out at night

I have never been worried about my safety, your always used to be safe in town as the 4000 people queing for a taxi would keep an eye out for you

What does bother me a small bit about Dublin is that, as someone said earlier, it always seems a bit dirty and indeed there is **** all to do at night that does not involve booze. Over here all business pay rates, and then get their rubbish collected every evening, and public bins get emptied every day, streets get cleaned with those big usless road cleaning things twice a week - and it does seem cleaner. It never bothered me when I was at home, but going home now and seeing the state of O'Connell street at 4 or 5pm now its a bit mad!

That said, Dublin is still the most fun city in the world

Sleepy

We don't need to sterilize anybody. Just lock them up for their crimes. A zero tolerance approach towards scumbags keeps them locked up in prison. This prevents them from breeding. Cogito Ergo Sum.

ixoy

I live in the city centre and have never had any trouble going home on any night. I'll generally walk down the quays, across the Liffey at Tara St. station, and down around by Bus Aras. Hardly ever encountered anyone, let alone trouble. In fact I've rarely seen any fights either (mayhaps because I avoid Temple Bar). I was mugged, once, but it was a case of my phone being snatched from my hand as I talked on it by some scumbag on a bike (may he die in pain). Whilst I wouldn't go so far as to say that I feel safe in the streets of this city, I don't feel that scared either and I am far from an intimidating figure...

Kingp35

i do feel safe in the city but there are way too many scumbags around in Dublin. Its some sort of epidemic where they travel in packs as well and its this that gives dublin a bad name. The guards should do more to stop these people doing muggings and stuff and cctv cameras should be put up around the town as this would make the scum alt more wary. Other cities take this approach and it seems to work well.

Dublin just seems to want to ignore this problem and somthing should be done about it soon

ionapaul

There will be more and more skangers in Dublin with each generation - they outbreed the middle- and upper-classes with ease. See many 16-21 year old kids of doctors, lawyers, business owners, professors running around with a child of their own? Didn't think so. See many tracksuit and massive hooped earring wearing girls on O'Connell St. pushing babies around? Thought so.

If I were the dictator of Ireland (I am sure everyone has thought about this and the changes they would make), every lad with a 'tash under the age of 30 = bullet in the head. Same crackdown on crime as in Singapore (never felt as safe on the streets as Singapore, felt I could run around with 1000 euro in my hands and nothing would happen), you vandalise a car, throw a bottle against a wall, throw a punch at someone = publicly caned and jailed for at least 6 months. If you continue to have children without being able to support them (not using the state's largess) = forced sterilisation. Corrupt politicians = jailed (though really no need to politicians if I were dictator, after all ). Ok some of the above is too extreme, but you get my drift. Dublin is currently the hell-hole of Ireland, hopefully something can be done in the near future to improve things.

EKRIUQ

Heres what the tourists think of Dublin












Surprised I was

tinkerbell

Oh dearie me!!

Sure I suppose the tourists think Dublin rawwks is coz they don't have to live in it! (Guess tiz the same in every city really)

I think tiz hilarious to see people takin photos of the spike. Although I do have to say they have improved the look of O'Connell Street a hell of a lot this year - they seem to be making it more Champs-Eylsses-ish.

I'm from the country and granted I didn't particularly love my hometown coz the place was rather dead, I much prefer it to Dublin. Dublin is smelly, dirty, full of filthy knackers who'd rob you for fifty cent, the traffic is crap, the air is polluted, the place is over-crowded, tiz overly priced, oh the list could go on!!!

I really appreciate it when I go home now, at least my lungs get some clean fresh air into them now and again when I do go back home!!

Sleepy

O Connell Street is starting to look quite respectable alright. Now if we could just sort out the scumbag problem we'd be away in a hack...

Ellesmere

The pulse of class consciousness is alive and well. Sterilisation? expulsion? extermination? Hitler would be proud. No, dublin can't all be Gucci wearing beautiful people on Grafton Street and Ross O'Carroll-Kelly types buying cappucinos for extortionate prices. Don't hate people because they wear big gold loopy earrings or have whispy little moustaches. They are part of dublin's culture and long may they remain so. :cool:

The Beer Baron

The word Kip doesn't do Dublin justice,
does anyone have a word that says, "Obnoxious, arrogant, hostile, over-priced, over-rated, warren of filth, populated with yuppies, junkies and scum that was built upon an open sewer and should be carpet bombed by a squadron of B-52's dropping VX gas." in just one word?

Oh wait, there already is a word- Dublin.

<edit- statement may or may not include emboss >

ionapaul

A lot of things are part of world culture...doesn't mean they are worth keeping around. Female circumcision, child sex, extreme violence, etc all have their place in different cultures...proving your manhood by drinking till you puke is part of our culture.

Sleepy

Originally posted by Ellesmere
The pulse of class consciousness is alive and well. Sterilisation? expulsion? extermination? Hitler would be proud. No, dublin can't all be Gucci wearing beautiful people on Grafton Street and Ross O'Carroll-Kelly types buying cappucinos for extortionate prices. Don't hate people because they wear big gold loopy earrings or have whispy little moustaches. They are part of dublin's culture and long may they remain so. :cool:

There's no need to castrate the "Gucci wearing beautiful people" they come with built in contraception: their personalities.

If wanting people to be capable of living in society makes me a Nazi, sign me up.

Kingp35

Don't hate people because they wear big gold loopy earrings or have whispy little moustaches.

Why not it these people that give dublin a bad name, don give a **** about it, wreck the place and cause the majority of trouble. Ah but we should all lovethem really.

proving your manhood by drinking till you puke is part of our culture.

Here Here

adonis

part of our culture ? ?

sure it is, but ive been to cities in spain where the same thing happens. summer feria malaga, and it was middle aged women who were doing it.

You culchies just dont know how to live in a city, thats all.

Dublin is a fast growing modern capital city, thats trying to find some kind of new identidy. Dont dislike it because its expensive, things are expensive everywhere in ireland...
And all those people giving out about the government ? do they not run the rest of ireland too ? The majority of TD's (i would say) are from outside the capital. They are also messing up the country, with the freedom of planning permission and the lack of urban centralisation in rural ireland.

On an earlier point, every city is dirty, and dublin, (barring sunday morning) is a relatively tidy and well kept city. Madrid, amsterdam, barcelona, all cities that are dirtier than dublin.

And sorry, cars are going to make smoke..now woh knows how to burn hydrogen to power cars...

Go Back To The Bog and drive your diesel tractor.

adonis

oh oh on our culture:

their are many other things that our culture is famous for:

Music, Literature and art...

if you omly choose to highlight that as part of our culture then you are pretty blinkered, or advocate this kind of behaviour

Sleepy

Jesus, I thought Ross O' Carroll Kelly was a fictitional character, I didn't know he posted on boards.ie :rolleyes:

adonis

who is ross o carroll kelly?

joe_chicken

i love Dublin!

all that **** about Dublin being a "wanna be" Newcastle/London/Paris is bull****!!!

wtf.... a city is a city, it doesnt have wants!

the people in a city make it what it is

yeah sure there are scumbags but at least they dont have guns!

it may be dirty, it may be grafitti riddled, but its mine

because of the irish 'dont make a fuss about it' type attitude.

you gotta love us!

ionapaul

Adonis, when I mentioned in Ireland drinking till you puke was part of the culture, it wasn't 'cause I thought it is a good thing! It was because an earlier poster mentioned that the scumbags were part of Dublin's culture, so therefore should be left alone. I was just pointing out that the world, and us too in Ireland, have elements to our culture that are pretty disgusting, and just because they are part of the culture, we don't need to stand back from criticising or trying to change them!
You are right that we have some great literature, art, and music. I definitely don't advocate drinking till you puke! I think it is fairly retarded and very pathetic, and I am sure most board members think the same.
Now back to my bog to drive my tractor...:) I've lived in far bigger cities than Dublin, but maybe you are right, I don't know how to live in (as we all say around here) 'the Big Smoke'!!

Ellesmere

A lot prejudice is based on appearance. It’s not being made clear if people are referring to others as scum because they perpetrate crimes on others or because they grew up in the inner city. And even at that I’d bet there is not many here who aren’t guilty of a few minor indiscretions.

I’ve being going out in Dublin for years and never being assaulted or robbed. Although when I was in college we were with a group walking through temple bar at 2am and one idiot with us responded to some pissed bloke who was asking him for change, and then stopped to hear his life story. Despite us telling him to come along he stayed. Later that night he called back at the flat telling us he’d been robbed by yer man. Stupid bastard.

Flukey

Dublin has its problems, like any city, but it has its wonders too.

I have often taken friends and relations on informal tours of the city. I even set up a site with photos I took, for friends abroad who have never seen Dublin. So, here, let me take you on a walk around my city:

A walking tour with Flukey!!!!


Now, that wasn't bad was it?

ionapaul

Your tour is pretty cool, Flukey - lots of nice things to see and admire A trip to the Natural History Museum is a lot of fun as well.

Kingp35

yeah you make dublin look well all right and its a nice tour but i think you could make any place look nice if you really wanted

Marq

Yes. Dublin is a kip.

hedgetrimmer

Nice collection Flukey, but I still hold by my opinion that Dublin is a kip, having lived there all my life, and having seen how truly beautiful and *spacious* other European cities I have visited in the last year are

Stark

I had a look at Flukey's collection and it's mostly broken images.

joePC

I never had a bad experence in Dublin City, love the place, but is true there is nothing really tradisonal. Kerry was nice, would love to go back.

Thanks Joey

Snaga

Originally posted by Stark
I had a look at Flukey's collection and it's mostly broken images.

Im looking at it now and theres not a broken image in sight.

Stark

Ah it's only on Linux that the problem arises.

He's the image URLs of the form:

http://homepage.eircom.net/~flukey/Pictures\GPOtour.jpg

when it should be:

http://homepage.eircom.net/~flukey/Pictures/GPOtour.jpg