Best Places in Ireland

Trim and Tidy Towns In Ireland

Trim has been named Ireland’s cleanest town out of  53 towns and cities that entered a Litter League .

Swords came second with  Killarney in  third place, Cavan 4th and  Dun Laoghaire 5th

The rest of the Litter League results are listed below.

Best Beaches in Ireland

The Blue Flag is an international sign of a good , clean, safe beach.
In 2011 – these are the Irish beaches that were awarded Blue Flags….

County Cork Blue Flag Beaches  – Barleycove , Claycastle Garryvoe, Garretstown, Garrylucas, Inchydoney, Owenahincha, Redbarn ,  , Tragumna,  Warren , Youghal front strand.

County  Clare Blue Flag Beaches - Doonbeg, Cappagh, Kilkee, White Strand-Miltown Malbay, Lahinch, and Fanore

- Co Donegal Blue Flag Beaches – Bundoran, Murvagh, Rossnowlagh, Fintra, Narin-Portnoo, Carrickfinn, Marble Hill, Lisfannon, Portsalon, Killahoey, Shroove and Culdaff.

County Dublin Blue Flag Beaches - Velvet Strand, Portmarnock and Portrane

County Galway Blue Flag Beaches – Salthill, Silverstrand, Loughrea Lake, Tra Mhor Coill Rua, Tra an Doilin and Cill Muirbhithe, Ceibh an Speideil and Traught.

County Kerry Blue Flag Beaches- Derrynane, Magherabeg, Ballinskelligs, White Strand-Caherciveen, Kells, Rossbeigh, Inch, Ventry, Fenit, Banna, Ballyheigue, Ballybunion North and South.

County  Louth Blue Flag Beaches - Templetown, Port and Clogherhead;

County Mayo Blue Flag Beaches – Bertra, Carrowmore, Clare Island, Mulranny, Dooega, Doogort, Keem, Keel, Golden Strand, Elly Bay, Mullaghroe, Ross and Oldhead.

County Sligo Blue Flag Beaches- Rosses Point and Enniscrone.
County Wicklow Blue Flag Beaches – Brittas Bay North and South and Greystones
County Waterford Blue Flag Beaches – Clonea Strand, Bunmahon, Tramore.
County  Wexford Blue Flag Beaches- Courtown, Curracloe, Morriscastle and Rosslare.

Where are the Lowest House Prices in Ireland

A recent DAFT report  listed the average asking prices for houses  in the first 3 months of 2011.
The figures are given in the table below – for 4 Bedroomed Houses.
County Leitrim had the lowest average prices and Co.  Roscommon had the next lowest.

The average asking price of a 4 bedroomed house in  Leitrim was €179000. In County Roscommon it was €181000.

Take a look at some bargain properties here -
Detached 5 Bedroomed Bungalows under €200k

You couldn’t buy a site and build a 5 bedroomed house for that price!

As expected – the  most expensive  area was Dublin  – with South County Dublin prices just over three times higher than prices in Leitrim.
The highest prices outside Dublin were in Wicklow, Kildare and Cork.

Tesco Delivery in Kerry

Tesco Ireland will deliver your online shopping in many parts of County Kerry . Here is a list of some of the Towns and villages in Kerry where Tesco deliver.

Killarney, Tralee, Rathmore , Farranfore , Kenmare , Killorglin , Muckross , Milltown , Kilgarvan , Abbeydorney, Banna , Ardfert , Listowel , Castleisland , Blennerville , Castlemaine , Crohane , Dromickbane , Barraduff, Headford , Lacka, Gap of Dunloe , Carhoobeg , Derrylea, Blackwater ,

You can check  here on the   Tesco Ireland Website to see if  Tesco will deliver to your village in County Kerry or anywhere else in Ireland .

You need to register your name and address first . After you register – just click on the “Start Shopping” link.
If  Tesco deliver to your address you will be able to continue shopping.

You can also register and have shopping delivered to another address – such as a holiday home or a relative’s address.

There are sometimes special discount codes available – check here for the latest Tesco Discount Codes

Fastest Broadband Upload Speeds

There is some interesting data collected at Speedtest.net about broadband speeds in Ireland.
In April 2011 the summary of their Upload speed tests for Ireland showed that Magnet Broadband had the fastest upload speeds out of all the public internet providers. The average upload speed for Magnet was 2.92Mbps. Many people in Ireland would be happy with that as a download speed.

Some smaller local wireless broadband providers did well – with upload speeds of around 2Mbps

Of the bigger internet providers – UPC came in behind Magnet with upload speed averages of  1.63Mbps

Meteor – which is only a mobile broadband  provider did really well with average  upload speed of  1.47Mbps.
Imagine and Digiweb had upload speeds in the tests of 1.12Mbps and

All the mobile broadband suppliers did better than Eircom. (0.53Mbps)
Three 0.86Mbps
O2 - upload speeds 0.83Mbps
Vodafone 0.59 Mbps

Clearwire came out with the slowest upload speeds of just 0.1Mbps

(The Education Network HEANET had  the fastest  upload speed – (19 Mbps !!)  but that is only available in Universities and other educational institutions)

Upload speeds are not as important as download speeds when using the internet – but good upload speeds are usually a good indicator of broadband quality.

According to Speedtest – the Town with the fastest upload speeds in Ireland is  Tralee with 3.93 Mbps  – that is probably because of the Institute of Technology in the town which has high speed broadband.
Dundalk, Kildare, Wicklow, Galway, Waterford, Carlow and Lucan were the next 7 in the best upload speed chart.
Tullamore cane out last with 0.54Mbps

Best Quality Broadband in Ireland

On the Speedtest.net website – they run thousands of speed tests for internet users all over the world. They store and analyze the data – so they can compare the results from different internet providers.

For Ireland – they have worked out the top 5 providers based on a Quality Ranking which they do by measuring packet loss on the connection.
The data was collected between Oct 2009 and April  2011 – and is updated all the time
Only ISPs with more than 100 tests were included in the results.

April 11th – Updated Quality Rankings

Vodafone came out with the best quality broadband  in Ireland -  with a rating of   86.85 .

Eircom came second  with a rating of 85.99

Three – who only do mobile broadband came in a respectable third with 81.65 . This is surprising for mobile internet – which many people seem to assume is unreliable.

Imagine came fourth with 80.63 and  UPC came a poor 5th with just 63.43 – way behind the rest.

The town or city with the best overall quality of internet connection was Dublin with a rating of 77.57 and Cork was 75.13. Only towns with at least 500 tests were included.

Best Schools in County Cork

According to the Sunday Times 2011 Parent Power Survey of Secondary schools in Ireland – these are the top 10 schools in Cork.

1. Presentation Brothers College Mardyke
2. Scoil Mhuire , Cork
3. Colaiste an Phiarsaigh , Glanmire
4. St Mary’s Mallow
5. Mount Mercy College , Cork
6. Colaiste na Toirbhirte, Bandon
7. Presentation Secondary , Mitchelstown
8. Sacred Heart Clonakilty
9. Christian Brothers College , Cork
10. Brandon Grammar – Bandon

The chart is compiled based on the number of pupils that go to third level education. This may not be an accurate measure of a school’s performance but in the absence of any government figures or published results – it is all we have to go on.
Teachers in Ireland do not seem to want to publish exam results.

Towns with the Best Broadband Speeds

According to speed tests carried out on Speedtest.net – between Sept 2008 and MArch 20011 these are the Top 10 towns with  fastest internet download speeds in Ireland

1. Lucan 15.33 Mbps
2. Maynooth  12.84 Mbps
3. Celbridge  11.53 Mbps
4. Swords  11.25  Mbps
5. Kilcock 10.76 Mbps
6. Naas  10.73 Mbps
7. Newbridge 10.68 Mbps
8. Carlow 9.39 Mbps
9. Athlone 9.31 Mbps
10. Dublin  8.88Mbps

By comparison – the same speed test site has the top 10 UK towns with average speeds ranging from 21Mbps to 29 Mbps. The top Irish town wouldn’t make it into the top 50 in the UK.

Cork came out with an av speed of 5.54 Mbps while Galway did slightly better with 6.28Mbps.
Tuam was the slowest shown – with av speeds of 1.31 Mbps

For Upload Speeds – these were the top ten Irish towns or cities

1 Dundalk 2.55 Mbps
2 Carlow 2.09 Mbps
3 Wicklow 1.90 Mbps
4 Athlone 1.76 Mbps
5 Lucan 1.70 Mbps
6 Maynooth 1.66 Mbps
7 Waterford 1.46 Mbps
8 Tralee 1.40 Mbps
9 Cavan 1.40 Mbps
10. Tipperary 1.33 Mbps

Overall – on the speedtest site – Ireland ranks in 52nd place. Results were obtained by analyzing test data between Feb 12, 2011 and Mar 13, 2011. Tests from 1,100,532 unique IPs have been taken in this country and of 7,145,506 total tests, 13,914 are being used for the current Index.

Top 10 Free Visitor Attractions in Ireland

These are the 10 most popular tourist destinations in Ireland – that are FREE.
Figures shown are the number of visitors in 2008 .

The National Gallery of    742,332
Irish Museum of Modern Art                  440,000
National Museum of Ireland – Archaeology                        380,547
National Museum of Ireland – Arts & History   300,418
Holy Cross Abbey   Shannon              260,000
Chester Beatty Library                          225,543
Dublin City Gallery  Hugh Lane          203,207
Farmleigh        196,449
The National Library of Ireland               136,509
Nicholas Mosse Pottery        Kilkenny     120,000
National Museum of  Country Life   Castlebar               112,195

Top 20 Tourist Attractions In Ireland

These are the most popular places for visitors in Ireland.
Based on visitor numbers for 2008. These are all destinations that charge a fee.
The number of visitors is shown next to each attraction. Figures from Failte Ireland

Guinness Storehouse            1,038,910
Dublin Zoo                                     932,000
Cliffs of Moher                              808,310
National Aquatic Centre          706,739
Book of Kells                                 541,364
Dublin Castle                                 365,000
Blarney Castle                            360,000
St Patrick’s Cathedral     Dublin          345,965
Fota Wildlife Park   Cork          331,062
Bunratty Castle                         305,557
Kilmainham Gaol                     300,828
Waterford Crystal Visitor Centre        290,000
Kilkenny Castle                        256,533
Jameson Distillery                250,000
Rock of Cashel                        237,732
Bru Na Boinne                         236,312
Powerscourt House & Gardens          232,257
Kylemore Abbey & Garden                 180,000
Christ Church Cathedral    Dublin         180,000
Atlantic Edge                      166,017