
A sold-out city? The fight to save Dublin’s nightlife - coffeedrop
https://www.huckmag.com/perspectives/activism-2/a-sold-out-city-the-fight-to-save-dublins-nightlife/
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hydrox24
I understand the opening sentence is a rhetorical flourish... but it is also
astoundingly wrong.

> This year, on Imbolc – a Gaelic tradition that sees Ireland celebrate the
> patron saint Brigid, a Celtic goddess...

Imbolc is a celebration of the _Goddess_ Brigid, which very few Irish
celebrate. The feast day for _Saint_ Brigid is on the same day, and is
celebrated more widely. While she was possibly a Christianised version of the
goddess, she is probably a real person who was later given the characteristics
of the Goddess by her hagiographers and by confused lay people. Apparently the
tradition continues.

> ...who allegedly had 7th-century lesbian romances and carried out the first
> abortion on the island...

I don't think that the 'allegedly' is a strong enough qualifier here. It's a
relatively modern interpretation of a piece of hagiography (rather than a text
considered to be more historical). Historically, neither has been asserted by
the Catholic church or by scholars generally.

And finally... The goddess clearly existed much earlier than the 7th century,
so assuming they're talking about the saint... she lived from the middle of
the fifth century to the first part of the sixth. The _book_ about her was
written in the 7th.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brigid_of_Kildare](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brigid_of_Kildare)

~~~
xkcd-sucks
Your comment highlighted the similarity between religion moving into new
places and crossover [fan]fiction. It's neat how things develop

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Macha
Dublin has been having a bit of a boom (of which tech is a major driver) in
the last decade, but this just feels like another symptom of the city which is
not allowed to build denser or to sprawl with the result being anything less
profitable in terms of land value is getting pushed out of the city (including
many families who have lived their behind) while rents reach some of the
highest levels in Europe

~~~
dajohnson89
Why isn't the city allowed to be denser?

~~~
wheybags
Partially because people don't want it to be, too. Irish people have an
obsession with land, and see any dwelling that isn't at least a semidetached
house with a back garden as a "temporary space" for students and unmarried
young couples. We just don't like apartments.

~~~
purple_ducks
> We just don't like apartments.

People have legitimate reasons for not liking apartments in Dublin of which
noise is a major reason.

Lax planning & building regs. dictated to politicians by developers ensured
that apartments were small and had neighbours on pretty much every side.

Most people who left apartments did so for valid reasons, not an obsession
with land.

Living long term in 98% of apartments in Dublin would ruin your quality of
life.

~~~
barry-cotter
I’m Irish and I live in a 60 square metre flat with my wife and we’re
expecting a baby. I can distinctly hear one neighbour’s music most evenings
and while the other is quieter I can hear them shagging. This is not a big
deal. If most of the population of Shanghai can do it Irish people can too. My
quality of life is great.

~~~
purple_ducks
I lived in a "nice" apartment which had neighbours attached above, below, to
the back & 2 to the same side(staggered, joined apt blocks).

There was 0 chance of being able to sit quietly in that apartment and just
concentrate or listen to music at an ambient level.

It's great that your tolerance level for noise is that high - most peoples'
aren't, thus the constant exodus to the surrounding counties to get a
house(which itself is no longer doable with a sane commute (<1 hr))

Dublin's population is 1.3 million. It's not London. It's not San Francisco.
It's not New York.

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JansjoFromIkea
The reason I didn't even consider Dublin over London or another major European
had little to do with the rent prices as it had to do public transportation.

Being dependent on mainly in Dublin means you'll likely want to restrict
yourself to areas which can get you to your workplace with zero connections
(and everyone else who works in your general area will probably feel the
same). Being an especially wet country (nowhere near as bad as the west of
Ireland, mind), means even this is gonna be an utter misery many mornings and
evenings. As far as nightlife is concerned, with a better public
transportation system you can get away for ages by just continuing to push
stuff further out.

In London I've the option if I want to live pretty far out (but still on a
line that stops near my office) and live alone for not a whole lot more (if
anything) than I'd pay to live within walking distance and share. Hardly
anyone I know on my pay level in Dublin could even consider living alone,
which puts even further pressure on living as near to work as possible.

~~~
q3k
I've lived in Dublin for two and a half years years. I like to tell about its
public transport to people who complain they have it bad in their city (not
that it's an excuse, it's just extremely entertaining to see their reaction):

\- There's one suburban train service (DART) that kinda goes through the
centre and then just takes you to suburbs. It's like an S-Bahn except it
doesn't stop anywhere useful in the city itself. Unless you live in one of the
expensive suburbs it takes you to, you can basically forget about it. I've
only used it to get out of the city for hikes.

\- There's two tram lines, that until a year ago didn't even cross. Oh, and
the trams are _extremely_ slow because they have barely any dedicated lanes in
the centre, instead sharing the street with the rest of the road traffic. Even
when they are on dedicated tracks, they're still absurdly slow for some reason
(in comparison to all other tram systems I've used elsewhere).

\- There's buses. They're ugly, loud and extremely uncomfortable. They have no
timetable, instead they leave their terminus at some fixed time and then go as
fast or as slow as they can, sometimes skipping stops if the traffic is bad.
[1] Since this means you basically cannot make distributed, reliable
connections between buses, they maximize their usefulness by running most of
them through a single choke point in the city centre, where it can take up to
30 minutes to go through. Each line has a ton of stops, and every time
passengers get on the bus, they go single-file through the driver that asks
for the target stop and charges their pre-paid card accordingly (or you can go
through a separate card reader that just charges you a daily flat rate, but
that doesn't make sense if you're not commuting a long distance that day).

And that's it. Nothing else. Unless you're lucky enough to be on the _two_
tram lines or _one_ commuter train, you're stuck with shitty, expensive buses.
Don't move to Dublin.

[1] - There is real-time bus tracking, but this doesn't help you to make a
connection, just to leave home/work and not have to stand in the rain for too
long. Just hope you bus doesn't get stuck in traffic along the way.

~~~
anjc
> There's buses. They're ugly, loud and extremely uncomfortable

Ireland didn't invent these buses just to annoy you, the Volvo buses used in
Dublin are used worldwide, including London and Berlin. They're as modern as
you can get.

~~~
q3k
They look good from the outside. It's when you actually want to use one that
things go downhill:

\- Extremely rattly and loud. No idea why, but I assume it's because of the
extra resonance created by the double-decker design. Any time the engine is
idling, you're shaking with it, and you're likely to get a headache in the
long term. Don't even get me started about how it leans and kips hitting tree
branches on tight corners in Sandymount. I don't generally get nauseous in
public transport, but Dublin buses would without fail get me extremely dizzy.

\- Terrible seat design and spacing. I'm not a tall person, but there's some
rows where I can barely fit my legs. Not to mention the seats tend to bend
back with use, giving the person behind you even less space.

\- Dirty. I haven't ever seen a single bus without an empty can, bottle, or
other packaging. Spilled liquids are common, too. But that's a general Dublin
problem - for some reason it's one of the nastiest cities I've seen, people
just don't seem to care for it at all.

Just to be clear - I'm not comparing this against an imaginary Perfect Bus.
I'm comparing this against existing bus systems I've used and loved (Warsaw,
Munich, Berlin, ...).

~~~
anjc
This must be a route-dependent thing (e.g. Sandymount routes would have lots
of students on them). My routes rarely/ever have trash or liquids on them, hit
branches etc.

Again re: seats and engine....these are the same seats and engines used in
Germany and England also.

Still, I prefer the trains to buses in Dublin.

~~~
iandioch
I would think Sandymount routes would have few students on them, considering
the price of living in that part of the city. What's more, blaming the problem
on students/young people (ie. me and my peers) seems short sighted.

I have lived near Ballymun/Glasnevin for years (where there are indeed
students), and would consider the problem similarly widespread everywhere I've
seen in the city.

I think the mentioned problem of the choke point in the city centre was the
important one for me; it's impossible to get from where I live to more or less
anywhere else on the Northside without a half hour's bus to O'Connell, a
change, and then a 30 minute bus again in the other direction, even if where I
am trying to go is just a 10-15 minute direct drive from where I started.
Walking to my destination, no matter where it is, has almost always taken a
similar amount of time as getting a bus, since I moved to Dublin.

All this said, there's new bus routes coming in, so we'll see if it changes.
I'm leaving the city ASAP though.

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CalChris
In SF, that happened to Cocomos. It was a great club that was closed and sold
for development. That’s understandable but it brings to mind the Yogi Berra
quote, _Nobody goes there anymore. It’s too crowded._

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secfirstmd
As an aside. Great to see so many HN readers from Dublin. We should totally do
a Meetup at some stage. Check my bio if you are interested!

~~~
throwaway29319
Dublin has plenty of shitty meetups. I wonder if an HN one would be above or
below the average.

~~~
secfirstmd
Fair point.

------
asymmetric
Meanwhile in Berlin: [https://www.citylab.com/equity/2019/02/berlin-germany-
housin...](https://www.citylab.com/equity/2019/02/berlin-germany-housing-rent-
how-much-price-landlord-policies/582898/)

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narrator
Tech workers move into a city and drive up rents. They complain about lack of
density driving rents up. Meanwhile, New York and Chicago are not really tech
hubs, even though they have dense downtowns. Hong Kong should be the center of
the tech universe with all that density, but alas it is not. Maybe the thing
that makes tech workers want to live and work somewhere is lack of density?

~~~
alexgmcm
Given many tech workers can work remotely it seems bizarre that we even need
to live in city centres.

But alas, businesses still want everyone in the office (often all the time as
well).

~~~
duggan
I mean, a convenient commute is nice, but so is access to cinemas, museums,
restaurants, bars, etc.

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purplezooey
79 hotels. Wish we could build like that in the bay area.

