My Poor Town, Poor Castlebar.

6541

It makes me sad, so sad. I walk up main st of Castlebar during the evening and its a ghost town. The life and soul of our once proud town has been sold out. Our young are gone, some will never return.
We are seeing a town dying on its knees. God knows how shops and pubs are staying open.

nuac

Castlebar not doing that badly - there are many working there in the various public services - Council, Hospitals, Davitt House. There are opportunities there for local business people. Other Mayo towns do not have the same number of customers on their doorsteps.

Ilovelucy

Come see Ballina!

neiphin

Ilovelucy wrote: »

Come see Ballina!

but remember to keep your car doors locked

tayto lover

Visit Dundalk. It's actually like a Ghost town at times. Loads of shops boarded up and the others empty. Pubs shutting down weekly. The shops are doing a very poor trade too.

Fiskar

Same in every town across the land. Navan is worst now for derelict buildings than when we came here 20 years ago. All we need now is for the likes of Argos and M&S to go and we'll be back to 1999 levels in the shopping centre although I'd say PC world & Currys will go after Homebase.


No one spending anything in this country at the mo.

happyoutscan

Worst town I've come across lately has been Castlerea. Worked there a few years ago and there was a great vibe in it. Passed through it recently a couple times and it is a ghost town, loads of shops and pubs closed.

Defiler Of The Coffin

I was out in Castlebar on a Friday night a few weeks ago, Johnny McHale's was quite packed and there was a good crowd in Coxes, although no-one seems to bother going out until about 1am. I can imagine it would get old after a while though. Castlebar could really do with a new nightclub although the Lounge can be ok some nights. I do find Main St depressing though, the work done on the pavements etc is nice but some of the shopfronts are derelicts at this stage, it really needs to be cleaned up. I might sound like an oul codger but Castlebar was far better when the likes of the Humbert and Shortts were open, at least you could listen to some semi-decent music, there were always some young bands trying to gain notoriety for themselves. Even Stalkys was good craic. Ah the memories.

There certainly a lot of young people gone from Castlebar but when was it ever any different in Mayo?

Tombo2001

I know this is a Mayo thread but it seems to have hit a nerve.

The biggest challenge this country faces today, and its not really spoken about, is to give people a way to make a living outside of the big cities.

irishgeo

Tombo2001 wrote: »

I know this is a Mayo thread but it seems to have hit a nerve.

The biggest challenge this country faces today, and its not really spoken about, is to give people a way to make a living outside of the big cities.

I work in Claremorris and I counted 40 shops closed in the place. I was out in Castlebar about 2 weeks ago on Sunday at 6pm and it was dead.

The bus going to Westport evey Saturday night is sucking the life out of the town as well.

byhookorbycrook

Last Sunday, most of Castlebar was probably on the tear after beating Kerry!!

finisklin

6541 wrote: »

It makes me sad, so sad. I walk up main st of Castlebar during the evening and its a ghost town. The life and soul of our once proud town has been sold out. Our young are gone, some will never return.
We are seeing a town dying on its knees. God knows how shops and pubs are staying open.

This is the same the length and breath of the country and we have lost something as a people and as a nation. We are proud of our towns and localities where we grew up and it is a terrible shame to see them decay and wither away with no young people or thriving businesses on these once prosperous streets.

What's worse is the loss of community and the spirit that was there before. People are now holed up in their homes with tvs and ipads etc to occupy themselves if they can afford it and with a baseball bat under their bed to protect themselves.

A terrible turn for the worse.

yew_tree

Claremorris is dead in the town centre.....the "out of town" shopping centres and supermarkets have killed main street Ireland. Looking at the posts on this thread remind me of the Bruce Springsteen song "My Hometown" and the following lyrics:

"Now main streets whitewashed windows and vacant stores
Seems like there aint nobody wants to come down here no more"

Sadly this is a feature of life in most towns across Ireland.

Tombo2001

One general point.....

Does the fact that the pubs are quiet necessarily mean that the town is dead?

Could it not just mean that people are going to pubs less?

Could there be other things to do?

heinze

Defiler Of The Coffin wrote: »

I might sound like an oul codger but Castlebar was far better when the likes of the Humbert and Shortts were open, at least you could listen to some semi-decent music, there were always some young bands trying to gain notoriety for themselves. Even Stalkys was good craic. Ah the memories.

There certainly a lot of young people gone from Castlebar but when was it ever any different in Mayo?

Ah I really miss the good aul days in Stalkys & the Humbert, great little pubs & made a lot of good mates there.

Was thinking about going back for a weekend with the lads, where are the good spots now for lads aged around 30. Is the Irish House and Hennellys still going?

neiphin

yew_tree wrote: »

Claremorris is dead in the town centre.....the "out of town" shopping centres and supermarkets have killed main street Ireland. Looking at the posts on this thread remind me of the Bruce Springsteen song "My Hometown" and the following lyrics:

"Now main streets whitewashed windows and vacant stores
Seems like there aint nobody wants to come down here no more"

Sadly this is a feature of life in most towns across Ireland.

saralou2011

heinze wrote: »

Ah I really miss the good aul days in Stalkys & the Humbert, great little pubs & made a lot of good mates there.

Was thinking about going back for a weekend with the lads, where are the good spots now for lads aged around 30. Is the Irish House and Hennellys still going?

Hennelly's is now a Easons bookshop Irish house is still going but it doesn't get the huge crowd it use to!:(

nuac

About the "doughnut effect"

Amused how the advent of a Tesco is welcome --- fifty new jobs or whatever for

---

.

No account of other jobs lost.

Shelflife

True Nuac, the rule of thumb for the likes of tesco is for every 100 they bring in 150 are lost.

What bugs me most is that the exact same thing happened in the UK. the planners allowed the big stores to open up on the outskirts of towns and killed the town centres.

In Mayo we have 6 Tescos to serve a population of 130000. 6% of the tesco empire to serve 2.5% of the population, a slight overkill if ever there was. thow in a scatter of aldis and lidls and you cant be suprised when all the small retailers are closing down.

Its not just the small grocery shops that are affected but the small whire good shops, music shops,flower shops book shops phone shops that are all affected too.

effectively tesco move in and sell the top selling books (foe example) for less then the local book shop can, customers then shift their custom to tesco and the local book store closes. now the customers can only get the latest best sellers and the less main stream books that made up 20% of the book shops sales can now only be got in galway.

In order to get these books the customer now has to travel and is severly put out. now apply this to flower shops, small white goods music shops etc etc and you get the picture.

so you might think that you are getting better variety and cheaper prices but in reality to get all that you need will cost you more (remember the trip to galway) and the variey has now diminished as a result of the specialty store shutting down.

nuac

I agree fully with this post.

There was a rule of thumb once in planning that a new retail development comprising more than 25% of existing retail space would not be allowed. Not followed for years.

Tesco did rush into the county - I assume to keep existing or new chains out.

I hope local butchers are now getting business, following all the scare stories re horse-flesh.

You get what you pay for

rusheen

Bad town planning , very bad town planning . I think cllr. Durcan was correct in saying "when they took the planning powers from local councillors planning actually got worse "

In the grand scheme of things Castlebar's not all that bad at the minute .It still has lots going for it as Nua said its the business/shopping captial of Mayo.
Westport is defo the tourist and party town of Mayo , in fact its one of the best in the country .So its hard for Castlebar pubs/clubs/ hotels and any other towns in the area to compete with Westport in that side of business.

Travel around other towns in Ireland and Castlebar doesnt look all that bad

happyoutscan

If (as I think is going ahead?) the Greenway extends from Westport - Castlebar - Turlough that will bring in some more business to Westport. I'd imagine hotels in Castlebar are less expensive than in Westport so you will hopefully see tourist numbers rising in Castlebar.

Notch000

the good auld days,

Hennellys, stakies, Humbert, Casey Jones, the green shop, friday night 4 Play in the TF, bushing up the lake

space_man

Bohola is booming. There were 3 cars parked there last Friday
and Ballyvary is experiencing a property boom. Bidding was fierce on a small holding of acerage with road frontage.

i think we have turned the corner .............

Thou

space_man wrote: »

Bohola is booming. There were 3 cars parked there last Friday
and Ballyvary is experiencing a property boom. Bidding was fierce on a small holding of acerage with road frontage.

i think we have turned the corner .............

FF rhetoric is it funny guy you