BEST place to live in ireland

irelandbound25

I am moving to Ireland in January from Oregon in the United States. I am looking for the perfect place to move to.
Very safe for a girl age 22
Beautiful-nice
Active nightlife
Not too remote

from my research I hear these places are nice:
Galway, Wexford, Wicklow, Kilkenny, Killarney, Dingle, Donegal...

What are your favorite places in Ireland? Any advice?

comeraghs

not too remote might rule out Dingle & Donegal.

Where in Wicklow? If it is Wicklow town ... the nightlife might be a bit disappointing

The other spots are nice, although personally I find Kilkenny people "odd"

I'd add Dungarvan County Waterford to the places to consider.


What do you want to do?

irelandbound25

I don't know what I want to do. Im graduating from college and I have a working holiday visa so I can live and work in Ireland for one year. I fell in love with Ireland when I visited last summer but only spent a few days in Dublin. I want to move somewhere not as big as Dublin but not remote either.

mk6705

Killarney sounds perfect by your description. Definitely beautiful anyway.

CoalBucket

Adro947 wrote: »

Killarney sounds perfect by your description. Definitely beautiful anyway.

Killarney is a shi* hole. Over priced for the tourists and full of piss head weekenders in the pubs and clubs. Not to mention the boy racer element for the remainder of the weekend. Ya the scenery is nice but thats about it.

From the description Galway sounds the ideal place. Nice compact city, great nightlife, close to the coast, university city so relatively safe for students and people of that age group.

ArtSmart

well you're gonna get a lot on answers to this one. best to tally them afterwards.
I'm voting Galway.
But it depends how big, eg Galway =70,000 pop. Dingle around 8,000.
Dingle's great, but not in the winter as much.
galway has it all, really and is close to most places.

SoulTrader

Galway gets my vote here too. Great city for a young person, and plenty of beautiful scenery within a half hour drive.

TheUsual

I would say Cork myself, but I never lived there for a year so I might have an unrealistic view of the city.

Maybe not so safe, but then again these days, where is ?
Even a single female in Galway has to be careful. Sad but a fact of life.

duckysauce

galway

Saaron

I used to live in Dingle and it's crap. Sure, it's pretty, but wait till the winter comes, it's lonely and dull.

Galway is a very lively place. Not too big, but has character and very nice people

Spinnaker

For 22yo female has to be Galway and the relentless rain there will make you feel at home ;-)

Holybejaysus

I would say Cork or Galway. Although Galway is pretty small I find, and gets boring rather quickly. Also, Cork would be closer to Kerry.....where all the beautiful scenery is

On a side note, isn't Oregon meant to be one of the nicer parts of the USA? If my random childhood memory generator serves me correct, the Goonies was filmed in Oregon. Not a lot of people know that...

GarRo247

Maynooth in Kildare, it is a mainly a student town, having the most popular and best University in Ireland it has lots of apartments has a few clubs and is 40 mins on a bus away from the great nightlife in Dublin not many other places would have the nightlife you would be looking for, anywhere far outside of Dublin or Cork is mainly local pubs, and Irish style run down clubs.

Joey the lips

personally my belief would be no where is safe unless your aware of safety.

My choice of place to live would be a satalite place of dublin like

Balbriggan
Ashbourne
Ratoath
Lucan
Kildare
Bray

maxxie

Tallaght :cool:

GarRo247

Some of the smallest areas in Oregon would be way bigger than the biggest areas in Dublin, the biggest towns in Dublin only have a population of around 100,000 so people in Ireland would see rural as having a population of less than maybe 10,000. For example Celbridge is bigger then nearly all the places you mentioned and has a population of 18,000 and it is the 12th largest town in Ireland, most Irish people would see it as fairly big but my American aunt (she was originally Irish but moved to Florida and hadn't been back for 45 years) was saying how small it was when she stayed during the summer in 2009 and she thought she was in the middle of the country when it was actually a large town. Another thing is that Ireland is still in a very bad recession and there are very few jobs outside of County Dublin, Dublin is a town inside of county Dublin. A quarter of Irish people live in County Dublin but 70% of the employed people in Ireland work in County Dublin.

GarRo247

Joey the lips wrote: »

personally my belief would be no where is safe unless your aware of safety.

My choice of place to live would be a satalite place of dublin like

Balbriggan
Ashbourne
Ratoath
Lucan
Kildare
Bray

I have to agree with Joey, and Lucan is better than any of the places I said, its just inside the very edge of Dublin and has busses to anywhere in Dublin.

sheesh

Cork and galway would be good they are small so you can live near town at a reasonable rate of rent they both have good sized expat populations and good nightlife the will have activities that you can get involved in.

Somewhere in dublin would be good to in that there is an american college there and an american expat association there also Dublin airport would enable you to get cheap flights to other parts of europe. Parts of dublin are not safe though so maybe not. dublin would be a good choice if you were not planning to have a car as while the public system is not great it is way better than other places.

the problem is that with irish towns being so small you can run into trouble anywhere. but you probably won't if you keep an eye out for trouble.

Were you planning on working?

fairchild

moved to cork from mainland europe 6 months ago and still am in love with the city- just the right size & definitely safe
cork airpot insures that you are in dublin in 25 min, paris in 90- all affordable
perfect place for me and very friendly (not too many supermodels stem from here mind you...) :-)

Balmed Out

cork city is a nice place to live. If your looking for something smaller id also research clonakilty, for a small town it has excellent nightlife, good giggs, loads of beaches nearby, surf school. Also still has a more traditional sense with good community spirit. Really Beautifull area with rosscarberry, dunbeg, galley head rathbarry etc all close by. Galway very nice too the city is a fair bit smaller then cork but to be fair to it theres always something on.

rusty_racer94

I moved to County Galway a year ago and regret it.
If Galway is your choice then make sure you are near the city.
Otherwise the N59 just kills during the night driving.

comeraghs

anywhere in County Waterford .......... but especially Ardmore or Dungarvan! just perfect :P

irishchiick

west cork.. the most beautiful place on earth :pac:

smurfet123

Just wondering if you have moved to Ireland yet and if so where did you pick and how are you getting on?:)

drmccoy

If you can afford Killarney look no further.
Im from Listowel.

lillismonica

To the Americans who are thinking of moving to Ireland, or anyone else, DON'T.I am originally from London but of Irish descent on both my parents' sides, my Mother's family from the centre of Dublin, and my Father's side from Clare. The biggest mistake of my life was moving from the U.K. Dublin is nice, as are lots of places in Ireland like Cork, Kerry, Wicklow, but ONLY for holidays/vacations. Dublin is so small, you drive down a couple of streets and you are suddenly out of the city centre, it is laughable. The cost of living is astronomical, as is the U.K but the U.k has more to do, see and experience. Great shops, cinemas, theatres, night life and museums. Dublin has around 3 museums, the transport system is appalling, 2 buses to get anywhere, no cross city services only around 2. Small towns are all drab and consist of pubs pubs, butchers and barbers and not much else. people from abroad are not happy here i've found but mostly married to irish people. The weather is appalling and you hardly get a summer. There is nothing to do only visit countryside. It is a lovely country but for holidays only. The U.S is amazing why would you want to move here?

jenbaby31

I'm from Dublin originally but i live in Cork now, from my own experience its a really nice city, smaller than Dublin, nice friendly people and everything you need in one place..plus you'll have all the nearby places like Killarney and Dingle.. great places to visit but not to live as mentioned above they would be lonely during the winter

sheesh

if you think dublins is too big then go down one step and try Galway and Cork
both near nice scenery and would have alot of things to do even when it is raining (which it does alot here) A friend of mine who is from new york lived in galway for a year or so and loved it.

Killarney is a much bigger step down in size but it is right in the beautiful scenery workwise you might be limited. killarney for its size has alot going on. It is a small enough town even by Irish standards I don't know how someone from the US would take to it one their own.


I would recommend Cork or Galway.