Ballymun, Dublin
Sean Finnan, in the Dublin Inquirer, reports:
“Yeah. We’ve no pubs in Ballymun,” says [Patricia] Mulready. “No pubs and no shops.”
“Ballymun is gone,” says [Dinagh] Neeson.
Both women say the fact that the last pub is now done is symptomatic of the wider malaise in the town, where social life for all age groups has been hollowed out.
“No shops, no pubs, no entertainment for the kids, we’ve to go on the bus to the bingo,” says Neeson. “There’s nowhere to socialise.”
“This is why the young fellas are getting into trouble,” says Neeson. They’ve nothing to do.”
. . . “A good-quality pub with food, and a meeting space, is seriously lacking in the town, and is important for both business and social life, [Head of Ballymun4Business Robert Murphy] says.
Nicola Keating, who lives locally and works in the Axis centre, just across the square says she agrees with Murphy.
“There was a big theatre show on recently in Axis, she says. The actors asked after where they could go for a drink, and maybe a bite to eat.
“We kept them here and we gave them drink here but we couldn’t feed them. Well, I gave them crisp sandwiches,” says Keating. “It’s embarrassing.”
Ballymun Should Have at Least One Pub, Local Residents Say (Sean Finnan, Dublin Inquirer)
Meanwhile…
Come and talk to us! We’ll be at the Rediscovery Centre in Ballymun from 10am this Saturday 22 June for a couple of hours. If you’re in that neighbourhood, we’d love to have you drop by, and tell us what needs more coverage, or talk about ideas for collaborative journalism.
— Dublin Inquirer (@DublinInquirer) June 19, 2019
Pic: Dublin Inquirer
Why is the pub gone?
The free market has spoken and decided it’s not worth the hassle. Blame your neighbours.
Blame the civic planners and corporation you mean.
From the (very short) article
“That closed down because of trouble,” she says. “The guards were outside every night of the week.”
Yes the guards are very boisterous when they get drink in them. Need to keep them out the back when they’re in that state
Is that a typo? How is a pub “done”.
Kegs all empty?
I would argue that the reason why there isnt anything left is because of the anti social behaviors in the first place!
According to the article, the pubs closed due to anti-social behaviour, more people drinking at home, and high rents in existing commercial units. It also explains the absence of pubs is down to the unfinished re-development of Ballymun.
Which indicates that the existence of any one of these factors makes it futile to address another factor.
It caused by this one: unfinished re-development of Ballymun
Along with the original bad planning in the development of Ballymun.
They sell beer in IKEA though.
The two pubs in the shopping centre closed for an abortive redevelopment, piling everyone in to the one remaining pub in the hotel which just concentrated any issues. With the Swiss Cottage also gone now there is a vast, vast area of the city with zero pubs. Axis has a theatre drink licence but you need to be going to the performance and it has to stop serving after it – and I get the impression it doesn’t serve at all.
No shops and no entertainment the Dublin Inquirer quotes someone saying. While the area is deprived it does have a Supervalu and a swimming pool – that’s more than many Dublin suburbs. I was in the Ballymun library a few months ago and it was empty – no one uses it. My own local library is always full of kids and older people reading the papers or going online.
Nothing is that black and white. I think there’s a certain sense of victimhood that goes with the all-too-real social problems there.
But the com-mune-it-tee needs fac-il-it-ies…
You were in the library once therefore no one uses it?
They have a plaza, where I grew up we had no plaza
They have a community garden, we had nowhere to put a community garden
GAA within ten minutes walk of the centre
Pub ditto
Theatre
I think these people are just trying desperately to find someone else to blame for their kids turning out to be gurriers.
I love the old line, that’s why they get in trouble, No its not. They get in trouble because their little scumbags. We had one football pitch which was literally a big square of tarmac with lines painted on it. We never acted how some of the youths do now.
Luxury!
You had painted lines!
Yes but we painted it in the blood of the animals we hunted, as we were to poor to go shopping.
Posh bogger!
Oooh Mommy took me hunting and we played polo in a lined enclosure
i grew up in the early 80s in a small village and all we had was the gaa pitch in the school, but whenever we went to play on it the local guard came down and booted us off coz it was foreign sport. we used to pretend to play gaa when we’d see him comin, then back to soccer after. but he’d usually either catch us or boot us anyway.
Sounds like the people of Ballydung have become too dependant on the State for everything. Get up earlier folks.
People?
Are there any youth diversion programmes there?
The article seemed to suggest that the kids had nothing to do because there were no pubs!
I just found the entire piece a confused jumble of quotes from various Ballymun residents without any stats, facts or editorial binding. And I normally like the Dublin Inquirer articles so that’s not a criticism of the entire set-up.
The reason I asked is I’d be surprised if there wasn’t. And in my (probably unpopular) opinion this is half the problem, even when so much is put on, some of the youngsters will still do what they want unless the parents are engaged in their wellbeing..
10 spot of hash?
Very diversionary.
Yes, two. As well as a very busy Youth centre and a number of after school projects.
Learned helplessness.
Swimming pool, library, top GAA club, DCU facilities down the door the road. Subsidised housing a short bus journey from where most of the employment is in this country.
Welfare dependency means Ballymun and a lot of other areas will never ever change.
I worked there in the late eighties, early nineties,a small minority willing to help themselves, the majority were whingers with a serious sense of entitlement.
A friend of mine worked for a sort of after school charity there, and the stories were horrific, parents too drunk to pick their kids up, kids wearing unwashed clothes for weeks on end, there were a lot of really tragic cases. They ended up buying a washing machine and dryer as the parents didn’t give a damn. So it’s easy to see how some grow up feeling angry at the world.
No shops? Gullivers Retail Park is around the corner: it includes a Eurospar, a Lidl, a McDonalds, a pharmacy, a pet shop, a Costa Coffee and other shops.
If only a pub would open all this anti-social behaviour would stop. Remember the halcyon days of Ballymun when the pubs were open and the local Garda station had to shut due to lack of crime? Remember!?
There was a lovely GAA park and a childrens play area (destroyed of course) now the little darlings fly around the park on motor bikes mummy is there on occasion giving sage like advice on how best to “take the corners” I’m not exaggerating.
I’ve worked all my life got a good job no chance of ever having a home of my own, our politicians are corrupt were a vassel to the EU, I know lets build a pub!!!