The Best Place to Live in Ireland
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Westport wins ‘The Best Place to Live in Ireland’ contest.
So the best place to live in Ireland is a pretty, landlord, town . . . . what does this tell us?
According to a feature report on Monday, and presumably in an attempt to scotch the notion that this selection had anything to do with a superior density of hanging baskets over rival contenders, [Cork; 1 basket per 20,000 head of population, . . . Ardara; we have a wee one, . . . and Rathmines; zero] the Irish Times reported that: ‘The town was chosen for its community of people working together to make the best of its many advantages’
Maybe so, but if Westport has this wonderful sense of community, how come its population of 5,500 is splintered into 97 different voluntary associations?
In a side column, John O’Callaghan, after listing the sickeningly long list of Westport’s many advantages, makes the acute observation that, ‘You see, Westport was planned right from the start’.
to quote Stephen:
planning . . . . . now there’s a notion -
Ahh the begrudgery 🙂
I am always struck by the the desirability of planned towns and villages as places to live and visit over their, shall we say, more spontaneous Celtic cousins..those straids etc celebrated by the Irish Rural Dwellers Association as representing a distinctive building tradition stretching back to Fionn MacCumhaill. The perfect example for me is Valentia island in Co Kerry with its lovely planned village of Knightstown and its rather chaotic neighbour Chapeltown.Well done to Westport though. It is a lovely place and it puts a great deal of time and effort into building itself up. As we know so well in Dublin, its not just about planning…maintaining is more than half the battle.
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