Is Howth Junction Court, St Donagh's Park, Kilbarrack a nice area?

I'll admit I don't know the specific development the OP referred to (it's hardly the grey ones beside the Kilbarrack Rd railway bridge? If it is my word, they haven't aged well to be only 13 years old) but I know the Kilbarrack area quite well, and I have never read such a steaming load of hyperbolic nonsense in all my days.

Pal of mine lives near the train station for about 5 or 6 years now, when he tells people where he gets the guff you would read above.

Yes, he's seen a burned out car, mobs of 30, 40 teenagers brawling with gangs from (he heard) Darndale at the station every summer, the occasional Garda car at the station to remove nuisance passengers (again, summer), at least two shootings in the last five years, lads beat down a door and battered an occupant of a house, bonfires on the green.

And you know what? He couldn't care less. Why would he? He wasn't the target of either shooting. He didn't owe money to the lads doling out the beating. The teenagers are brawling among themselves. The bonfires last 10 minutes before the fire brigade pull up and if they didn't, who cares.

6 years and the worst thing ever happened was some little git robbed his wheelie bin for the bonfire.

Some hilarious pearl clutching on this thread. Probably the same lot who are convinced town is a violent post apolyptic lawless wasteland when it's statistically one of Europe's safest and most heavily policed city centres.

I like all this advice about it being unsafe for a young girl on her own. Thread is 13 years old, I take it somebody will be along to post all the muggings, rapes, murders of women in the area since then?

"I've seen drug dealing in broad daylight"

By this, you've seen a young lad on a bicycle hand over a bag of green to another young lad, or there is an open air 24 hour drug market with teams of runners, dealers using hand signals serving passing cars, shouting out drug names, regular Garda raids on drug corners, and other stuff straight off The Wire.

You might be amazed to know some people in Malahide and Howth smoke weed, the dealer will orobably not live there but will drive out there most likely, yet you won't read pearl clutching about "broad daylight drug dealing".

My mate has never seen one of the incidents you describe in all those years living in the area (well bar the drug handovers- people buying recreational drugs, the thought of it!). He did hear of some Spanish students getting attacked at the station some years ago, that can happen literally anywhere in Dublin during the summer. There are teenage gangs fighting each other during the summer- estate vs estate, school vs school, and other imaginary battlelines teenagers have brawled over since the dawn of time.

There are junkies in the area- like most Dublin junkies they are in their 40s/ 50s, walking dead and well past their hell raising years for the most part. There are some scaldy fuckers in St Berachs, much like there's scaldys in 450k new estates where 10% of the homes are social and a good chunk of the rest are on various subsidised rental schemes.

I wouldn't live there because the traffic is a bit of a bastard (getting out of Raheny village crossroads, and the Greens have absolutely destroyed Fairview so driving into town is no longer viable) but I would have no reason safety wise to dissuade anybody either.

If a few teenagers running amok but keeping it among themselves, and a bit of green being delivered are your definition of a rough area you need to get out more.

Fair enough.

My 2 cents- anybody worried about their personal safety in the general Kilbarrack area should probably stay in the house 24/7.

I took a Google search there and the last time somebody died violently in the area appears to be in August 2003. 20 years ago this summer. There was also a man shot dead on the greens across the road in Donaghmede in the 2000s. And another shot dead beside Donaghmede S.C.

Not exactly Kilbarrack though.