Its official, I used to live in the 3rd worst town in the UK

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Not that it matters to me 6 years after leaving, but its nice to see some official vindication :slight_smile:

As always, from the Beeb;

I remember being on the express bus home to see my parents (who still live there) and a couple of workers from the textile mills in a smaller town nearby got on after work to head home. They laughed at how they were basically screwing over the mill’s production targets so they wouldn’t be worked any harder. The very next week the mill’s closure was announced as profits just weren’t being made any more :rolleyes: Stories about other workers striving to loose a hand in machinery to claim benefits for the rest of their lives seem more likely to be true than in any other town somehow…

Still, at least we don’t have the most violent court hearings in Northern Ireland :stuck_out_tongue:

2

Manchester is on that list! Ha! I knew it! My fiance goes to university there. I hate it but he thinks it great.

Oh dear God! This time next year, I’ll actually be living there! Noooooooooo!

3

At least you’ve made good your escape; I live in Luton.

4

Something good came out of Strabane! It was the birthplace of Briain O Nolain, alias Brian O’Nolan, alias Myles na gCopaleen, alias Flann O’Brien - one of the finest comic writers of the 20th Century.

During one of my brief forays north of the border in 1992 I passed through Strabane and it didn’t seem all that bad to me. I also passed through Cookstown, Co. Tyrone which, at that time at least, looked infinitely worse.

5

Where do we find the complete list? There’s a town in Northern Ireland I want to check out.

6

Baker, there was only a top ten, what town were you looking for?

seosamh, Cookstown is a pleasant enough place, from what I remember its probably a little less grim than Strabane. And it certainly doesn’t have the terrorist problem. As well as this, Strabane’s bypass means people sail straight on by without having to see all the gritty parts on the way to Donegal or Derry :wink:

7

No, Salford is. There’s a biiiig difference :).

8

Pushkin - In '92, driving through the centre of Cookstown you had to negotiate this awful Army checkpoint thing: an avenue of concrete-filled oildrums with a machine-gun post at either end. Maybe that’s what gave me the poor impression!

I suppose that was quite normal for NI in those days but the security in Armagh, Newry or Portrush wasn’t half as severe.

9

seosamh it all depended on the town really. In Strabane, if you were driving through at the right time, you wouldn’t see anything of the Army at all other than the border checkpoint. Then on another day you might see many foot patrols, vehicles and helicopters doing the rounds.

Thankfully the Flann O’Brian bar has been repainted a more tasteful colour :wink:

10

I was wondering about Carrickfergus.