Ballymena
This really is the crowning shit hole of N.Ireland.

It's got bigotted, sectarian, racist, ignorant residents who don't speak to outsiders and complain that there is nowhere to go for a night out other than the local pub. The reason for this is simply that the last night club that opened in the town was overun with paramilitary groups within 3 weeks, who then put their own members on the doors as bouncers. It was finally closed when several punters were stabbed after a local paramilitary feud, one guy having his eye stabbed out.

Many are delusional too, being told by a local that I couldn't be as good a sound engineer as he, since y'know he was working in a bus fitters yard and I was working as a sound engineer, and had been for a few years.

I have seen locals being ignored simply because they left to live somewhere else or simply because they got an education. One evening in particular springs to mind when my mate went over to a group of her old friends after coming back from university they respoded with "what do you want?" and "your the one who decided to leave" etc it seemed that they were annoyed that she didn't want to work in the local chip shop for the rest of her life (which, i hear, they are still doing 6 years on)

The local council is funny as hell though, apparently the town has a huge heroin problem and they seem to think it's caused by shops being open on a sunday as far as I can tell. You can usually find the hardcore religious types standing in the centre of town preaching to people who just ignore them. The authorities just ignore the problem completely along with other more serious allegations againt the town's more 'respectable' residents.

The council once banned ELO playing at their local football grounds on the basis that they were promoting satanism amongst the towns vulnerable youth! Many of whom are to preoccupied with buying wkd from the local off license.

The town does have some lovely people in it but it appears that if you live there long enough you become an embittered, jealous, resentful person, who gets angry at everyone else who worked hard to get somwhere, just because they were not handed everything on a plate.

Oh and I would walk through the darkest, deepest parts of Stoke, Essex or fucking Glasgow before I would walk anywhere through that town at night...it's fucking deadly.
( Bamboo Steamer, Fri 30 Oct 2009, 11:33, 4 replies)

*clicks furiously*
Scary, isn't it, that most Norn Iron towns and villages function along these lines, yet Ballymena seems to have some kind of concentrated bitterness to it. I think there may only be one thing worse than a small town in Norn Iron and that's a small town Norn Iron that's run by Free Ps.
( crackhouseceilidhband Fuck off back to Mumsnet, Fri 30 Oct 2009, 11:37, closed)

Oh lordy yes, I forgot about the presbyterian and paisley thing
*shudders*
( Bamboo Steamer, Fri 30 Oct 2009, 11:42, closed)

*click*
In its meagre defence, it has got a big shappin' centre, hi.
(Fawksie, Fri 30 Oct 2009, 13:51, closed)

Have a click
I was born and reared there. I spent the first 18 years of my life in that place, in a lovely little housing estate called Dunclug. I still have the scars on my knuckles to prove it :-( . The protestant / catholic thing was rife, the weekends entertainment seemed to be meeting up in some of the local parks and trying to kill someone else from another school. The heroin problem was just starting to rear it's head when we left, a few old schoolmates have since died from OD's and more have picked up all sorts of nasties from needles as well.

The council I remember well, the trial Sunday openings and the subsequent picketing of the businesses that tried to open by Paisley's cronies, stood outside preaching fire and brimstone tainted hate outside their doors. Also the whole of the the main shopping street, church street was owned by them as well, working for them was a nightmare, unless you were in the 'clique' and in the habit of going to church 3-4 times a week you were going nowhere, I can safely say I have never met a more vicious, nasty, vindictive set of people than those good living 'Christians' in my whole life.

I've moved out of there 15 years now and I've never set foot in the place since. Hateful, hateful, nasty little narrow-minded place. I've since moved to Belfast and I can safely say that it's been a move up in the world.
(uk_viper stopped lurking on, Sat 31 Oct 2009, 22:02, closed)