Why is Dublin such a shιtty city?

Things I like about Dublin: The aesthetics around Government Buildings, St. Stephen's Green, Dame St., the two cathedrals, Temple Bar, Dublin Castle. I enjoyed showing my wife around those areas, and the tours were excellent. 

But on the whole I despise Dublin. I wouldn't live there again if you paid me.

There are a few reasons:

The predominant Dublin accent and slang sickens me (i.e. the 'Fair City' lilt and deeper shades of the accent, such as you hear in Finglas, Coolock and such. For example "me mo'h" when referring to a girlfriend, or "doortburd" when one reprobate speaks disapprovingly of another reprobate). I find it shockingly brutish. I accept that this is on me and has nothing to do with whether or not Dublin itself is a hole. Still, you could find yourself in a beautifully designed and decorated room, all of which counts for nothing if the room is permeated by a foul odor that won't clear. The accent is a bit like that to me.

The violent tenor of life in much of working class Dublin. As a student, I lived there at the turn of the century and did some security work at the weekends with a bunch of Dubs who were older than me. They were from Finglas, Coolock, Sheriff St., and places like that. They were not quite the scum of the earth, but the cocktail of the accent, the violence, the hatred of the Gardai, the drink culture, the tricolour tattoos and the rebel songs combined to alienate me completely.

This isn't a case of me not liking the working man. Down the country I know plenty of working class people; the Dubs were a totally different category. Granted I was an 18 year old from rural Munster coming from a farming background, having up 'til then spent my free time fishing in quiet rivers, walking through the fields and meadows with my friends on long summer evenings; occasionally watching badger or fox cubs play close to large hedgerows at 10 o clock on a June night; sitting under ancient lime and oak trees reading books, and chatting with old country men you'd meet on the roads or at a gate to a field along some tree-lined lane with grass growing in the middle.

Moving to and working in Dublin was the biggest culture shock I've ever experienced, and I have since lived in the Middle East and India. Dublin was somehow Ireland, yet it resembled nothing -- and I really mean nothing -- of the Ireland that I had known up to that point. And this isn't a case of an innocent country lad moving to the big smoke and getting a land - because I later left Dublin and moved to Cork city and lived there in the city center for eight years and loved it. Cork had none of the sinister vibes that I felt every single day in Dublin. And Cork still felt very much like the Ireland I grew up in. The people were gentler, milder, more soft spoken, more connected with the land on which their city sits.

The junkies and the general sinister nature of the scobes on the street and on public transport are another factor. Copious numbers of ghouls roaming around in their appalling track-suits with an unmistakably evil, low intelligence look on their faces. I can't fathom people who say you find the same thing everywhere. You absolutely do not.

Lastly, I would say that the built environment on the whole is bleak, gray and ugly. The rooftops are horrible. (In other European cities, rooftops are generally beautiful and uniform) The streets have almost no trees, or what trees there are (outside of a few well known roads such as Griffith Avenue, North Circular Rd, etc) are just whippy things along grey corridors of misery. It sprawls, too. 

I apologize if I've offended anyone but this was my lived experience over three bleak years.

Sounds like you’ve got PTSD.

Worst three years of my life. Catching the 40 bus each morning outside Glasnevin Cemetery, often with crematorium smells and petrol fumes in the air, looking across at the scum bags in the estate opposite, who once launched a firework horizontally at me and a few others who were waiting there. Cycling up the grey, windswept, leafless and featureless Whitworth Road each Saturday and Sunday morning. Plodding up to Tesco in the repulsive Phibsboro shopping center. Walking from Busaras up to Parnell Square on a winters night the odd time I’d return after a rare weekend home. Pure misery. Peig had it easy.

I lived there for three years, of course I went to the Bots and did the various tours and experiences across the city. Even saw the medieval bodies of the nun and crusader in the coffins of that church before some loon wrecked them.

I never said there was nothing to do. I said I hated living there. Big difference. I wasn’t homesick by the way.

I lived in that general area from age 18-21 back around 1999-2002. I was doing a course and was by far the youngest student. That didn’t help.

I’ve since lived very happily in Cork, Madrid, Nuremberg, (not so happily in Mumbai) and Dubai. My work has also caused me to spend significant time in Cincinnati, Tokyo, and Bratislava. I’ve lived in cities for most of my life at this stage despite rustic beginnings. Sick for the fields of home I was not. And I have something to compare Dublin to.

Not in my blood. I said I got a shock. I got a shock because I was expecting to like my country’s capital, and my uncle, who is just a few years older than me, liked the place and had me excited about moving there. I fully expected to like it too.

I liked the Gravediggers and had many a great carvery in Tolka House and Dollymount something or other on a Sunday. Used to enjoy a chat with the proprietor of Fortes Chipper (gone at this stage I think) at the top of the Whitworth Road too. But Phibsborough and the Finglas Road area in general was a soul destroying concrete dystopia for 19 year old me.

Thanks for that. You made me chuckle, J :-)

I do truly think that I carry some sort of trauma over my time in Dublin. And it wasn’t me. It was me in that physical place.

Even today, twenty years later, I feel very uncomfortable in Dublin and I wouldn’t dream of going near my old stomping grounds. I just looked them all up on Streetview and it brought it all back. Good lord.