Irish Towns Guide

The famous jaunting cars of Killarney have today – July 14th 2009 been banned from Killarney National park after drivers refused to fit them with dung-catching devices.The National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) has said the soiling of pathways in Killarney National Park by the drivers’ horses was unacceptable.

They have even offered to pay for the horse “nappies”  but the  jarveys, claim they are dangerous. Forty five jarveys have licences to operate 66 jaunting cars in the park.

They offer tours of Muckross, Torc and Ross Island on 15km of internal roads and paths to almost 1m people who visit the County Kerry park every year

After 18 months of consultations and negotiations, the NPWS closed the jaunting car entrances to the park at 6am this morning.

Similar dung catchers are in use on Blackpool beach in the UK.

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The IBAL 2009 results were published this week – IBAL is the Irish Business Against Litter. Certain towns are checked for litter during the year by An Taisce on behalf of IBAL . All towns in Ireland of over 6,000 inhabitants are now covered by the Anti Litter League . Sixty towns in all were surveyed – the best town (cleanest) was Wexford

Top Ten Cleanest Towns 2009

1 Wexford
2 Ennis
3 Youghal
4 Carlow
5 Dun Laoghaire
6 Swords
7 Balbriggan
8 Longford
9 Roscommon
10 Killarney
Two towns came out as the worst  in the survey this year – they were  Mallow and Athlone – both were classed as Litter Blackspots.

Arklow was the the third worst – classed as Seriously Littered .
Other towns that did badly (classed as littered)

45 Buncrana
46 Dublin City
47 Cork City
48 Limerick City
49 Nenagh
50 Naas
51 Kilkenny
52 Waterford City
53 Portlaoise
54 Trim
55 Wicklow
56 Gorey
57 Tallaght

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Based on 2008 figures for entry into third level in Ireland – these are the 20 best secondary schools in South Dublin. This League Table was compiled by the Sunday Times newspaper in 2009 and is based on the percentage of Leving Cert students going on to third level in Ireland. It probably isn’t the best way of assessing a school – but it is the only one available in the absence of any government statistics on exam results .

G=Girls School ; B= Boys School; M= Mixed
Figures = % admitted to third level education in Ireland.

1 The Teresian School, Donnybrook, Dublin 4 G    100%
2 Mount Anville Secondary School,  Dublin 14 G   97.9%
3 Colaiste Eoin, Booterstown, Co Dublin B   97.2%
4 Gonzaga College, Ranelagh, Dublin 6 B   96.6%
5 Colaiste Iosagain, Booterstown, Co Dublin G   95.5%
6 Loreto College, St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2 G   83.0%
7 Muckross Park College, Donnybrook, Dublin 4 G   81.1%
8 St Joseph of Cluny, Killiney, Co Dublin G  80.0%
9 Alexandra College, Milltown, Dublin 6 G   78.5%
10 Loreto College, Foxrock, Dublin 18 G  77.7%
11 Holy Child Secondary School,Killiney, G  75.8%
12 The High School, Rathgar, Dublin 6 M   75.4%
13 Rosemont School, Blackrock, Co Dublin G  75.0%
14 St Michael’s College, Ailesbury Rd, Dublin 4 B 72.1%
15 Loreto High School, Rathfarnham, Dublin 14 G   70.5%
16 Mount Sackville Secondary School,Chapelizod, G    69.2%
17 St Andrew’s College, Blackrock, Co Dublin M    67.3%
18 Blackrock College, Blackrock, Co Dublin B    65.9%
19 St Conleth’s College, Ballsbridge, Dublin 4 M   65.1%
20 Sandford Park School, Ranelagh, Dublin 6 B   63.4%

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According to the Sunday Times league table of the top secondary schools in Ireland 2008 – these are the top 20 schools in Connacht. The positions are based on entry to third level institutions only – so may not be a very accurate assessment of a school. (Pupils may have taken Grinds elsewhere). In the absence of any government assessment  of school performance in Ireland – it is all we have to go on and is better than nothing at all.  There are no published figures or exam results for schools in Ireland – mainly because teachers are against it. Maybe if we saw exam results some  teachers might not stay in their jobs .
(M=Mixed, B=Boys, G= Girls)
The figure shown next to each school is thepercentage of Leaving Cert pupils entering third level in Ireland.

1 Scoil Damhnait, Achill, Co Mayo M 7 84.6
2 Seamount College, Kinvara, Co Galway G 76.2
3 * Marian College, Mohill, Co Leitrim M 75.0
4 Mount St Michael, Claremorris, Co Mayo G 74.5
5 Jesus & Mary Secondary School,Salthill, Galway G 70.4
6 Colaiste Iognaid SJ, Sea Rd, Galway M 70.0
7 Ursuline College, Sligo G 69.6
8 Colaiste na Coiribe, Tuam Road, Galway M 67.7
9 Presentation College, Athenry, Co Galway M 63.8
10 Scoil Muire gan Smal, Roscommon G 61.7
11 Holy Rosary College, Mountbellew, Co Galway M 60.5
12 Dominican College, Taylor’s Hill, Galway G 60.3
13 Scoil Mhuire, Ballinasloe, Co Galway G 60.0
14 St Mary’s Secondary School, Ballina, Co Mayo G 58.7
15 St Joseph’s College, Nun’s Island, Galway B 58.3
16 St Gerald’s College, Castlebar, Co Mayo B 57.5
17 Colaiste Cholmain, Claremorris, Co Mayo B 54.9
18 Colaiste Cholmcille, Inverin, Co Galway M 53.1
19 Sligo Grammar School, The Mall, Sligo M 52.8
20 Presentation College, Tuam, Co Galway G 52.7

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This site has started some discussion on a Tripadvisor Forum. See  Here
Nice to see some people looking at the site. Just to confirm – this site uses Census 2006 data mainly but is in no way connected with the CSO.
The compilation of the best and worst towns was carried out using certain data from the census . There are probably many other statistics that could be used to get a fuller more accurate picture- (if they were available) – but the census data was all that was used.
The chart is probably more of a measure of the wealth or affluence of a town rather than trying to be an accurate measure of the quality of life in these towns.

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The  IBAL released details of its final 2008 anti-litter survey of 55 Irish towns and cities which show a record 36 towns are now classed as “litter free”.Ireland’s cleanest town will be announced today from the top five who head the current league table — Cavan, Dungarvan, Fermoy, Howth and Sligo.

Cobh in Co Cork was branded the country’s dirtiest town — firmly rooted to the bottom of the league table along with Tullamore and the seaside town of Bray with all three described as “seriously littered”.

Only 50 towns were included in this survey –

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Oranmore – as made famous in the song “The Galway Shawl” came fifth in our league table of the BEST towns in Ireland to live.
Our top 20 chart was based on census figures from 2006 and was compiled using statistics on Education, Housing, Lone Parents, IT, Unemployment to analyse all the towns. Only towns with populations over 1500 were included. This is not intended as a tourist guide – just an indication of the best towns to live in.
At the 2006 census – the population of Oranmore was just 3513 .
Many of the residents probably work in Galway City and the  unemployment rate in Oranmore was only 4.56% – which is below  the national average in Ireland of 5.89%
In Oranmore – only 1.51% of the workforce are unable to work because of disability or ill health – which is well below the Irish census average of 4.71% .

Most workers in Oranmore are are employed in technical or professional jobs (24% of the workforce)
Lone parents- make up 12.22% of households in Oranmore – this is two thirds of the national average which is 19.29%.

Housing: Local Authority rented homes make up just 1.3% of the dwelling units in Oranmore. This is about an eighth of the average for Irish towns of 9.06.
Rented homes in Oranmore make up 30% of all homes in the town – which is just over the national average of 28.1%.
Of the homes in Oranmore – 14.5% are owned outright – with no mortgage outstanding – This is half the average for Ireland as a whole which is 28%. This is due to the mostly new homes and yoiunger occupants. In Oranmore the population ages 24 to 44 makes up 48.73% of the population – this is well above the Irish population as a whole which is 34% in that age group.
Central Heating is not installed in 6.64% of dwellings in Oranmore – which is a lot better than the national average of 10.2%.

Information Technology. : 63.18% of households own personal computers in Oranmore – compared to 53.3% nationally. Broadband connections were at 27.8% in Oranmore in 2006 . This is about 30% over the national avearge which was a poor 20.18% .  41% of homes had no internet access at all in Oranmore – compared to the national average of 51%

Education : Education levels of Oranmore residents is the best in Ireland . This doesn’t mean the schools are the best – just that people who live here or moved here for work have a good education . In Oranmore just 4.64% of the people were only educated to primary school level or had no formal education at all. This is way below he national average of 16.72%.  People with a third level degree or a higher qualification – make up 38.35% of the Oranmore workforce – which is the highest in any Irish town. and over double the national average of 16.57%.
Community involvement in Oranmore is about the same as the average for the country – 15.9% of the over 15s said they carried out some sort of voluntary work.

The percentage of people with a disability in Oranmore is below the national average of 9.8% at 5%.

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 A Litter League of all towns with more than 6000 population in Ireland had the 1st round of results published today.

The top 10 towns were

1 Ennis
2 Greystones
3 Fermoy
4 Portlaoise
5 Howth
6 Dungarvan
7 Dundalk
8 Letterkenny
9 Thurles
10 Clonmel

The litter figures are produced by ” Irish Business Against Litter ” – an alliance of companies sharing a belief that continued economic prosperity – notably in the areas of tourism, food and direct foreign investment – is contingent on a clean, litter-free environment.
As part of the IBAL Anti-Litter League, An Taisce monitors all towns of population 6,000 and over, independently in accordance with international grading standards.

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Tallaght is the dirtiest town in Ireland – that’s according to “Irish Business Against Litter “  They are an alliance of companies who say they share a sharing a belief that continued economic prosperity  is contingent on a clean, litter-free environment. As part of the IBAL Anti-Litter League, An Taisce monitors all towns of population 6,000 and over, independently in accordance with international grading standards.

The first round of results were published today and 3 towns came out as being Litter Blackspots. These towns were  Tullamore , Roscommon and worst of all was Tallaght .
The towns of Bray , Ballina,  Cobh,  Enniscorthy,  and Longford did not come out too well  either – they were all classed as Seriously Littered.

Slightly better – but still classed as Littered were the towns of Athy, Kilkenny ,Limerick City, Cork City, Ranelagh and  Mallow
Ennis came out top of the League out of  55 towns and cities in Ireland.

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