Dear Dublin 7.

In Blogby Rashers Tierney14 Comments

d7

With rent prices sky rocketing across Dublin, many friends of rabble are upping sticks and heading to pastures new. Pauliina Spockinen is one of these. She penned this wistful farewell to D7. Have you been pushed out of an area you loved?

 

dear dublin 7,

it’s time for us to part ways. i never thought it would come to this. i suppose i knew something was up when you started expanding the luas deep into your heart and opened a gourmet burger restaurant.

i thought we agreed that i’d ignore the rubbish on the streets and in return you’d make sure that no one would know how to pronounce “quinoa”.

but i suppose we both have changed: you with your newly inflated house prices and open plan ikea-furnished artisan cottages, and me with my precarious working hours and ever-decreasing wages. i just don’t think we’re compatible any more.

so, i guess that’s it, dublin 7. you will always hold a special place in my heart and in my liver. it’s been good. it’s been special. as sure as the luas lines are to meet one day, maybe once we will also be reunited.

love you loads, goodbye.

pauliina

 

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Comments

  1. Dear Dublin I’m sorry but I’m forced to leave you. The town I was born and where I will have to commute to look after my elderly parents every day. The stress got so bad I’m just home from A & E with a heart attack scare, I’m only 47. So that’s it. I give in, my heart and soul can’t take anymore. My son needs his mam around. So sorry I ever came back to Ireland, it did me no good. I just pray I get my new county house before someone beats me too it on Thursday. Here’s hoping :'( <3

  2. Okay. I’m preparing for the onslaught but here it goes. Is the influx of wealthy creative types to a place like Dublin 7 not the exact cause of the gentrification that seen house prices explode in the area? That’s not to say everyone in the area is rich, it isn’t. But where are the stories from ordinary working class people on their experience of this explosion of gentrification. Everytime a coffee shop with no name or Europallets for tables springs up it means that rent and basic services also go up. I genuinely feel sorry for Pauliina, but that Quinoa was her own downfall. In ten years I know Ballyfermot will be like the way Ranelagh is now, and no one ever talks about the effect that gentrification has on the people who spent all their lives there. Anyone who’s watched ‘Sex And The City’ will see rent controls barely ever benefit the working classes either. It’s a rot on a city, and for what? So someone privileged with a Mac Book Air and an NCAD degree can call themselves artsy? It’s sad.

  3. I have to say, from my perspective, I left the leafy suburb from which is was reared ten years ago due to the price of houses etc. I move 1 hour drive from my family and my wife’s family. It was the best thing we ever did! No traffic jams, ample parking for free, plenty of amenities and if truth be told probably a better community spirt even though we are ‘blow ins’. We live 3 miles out side a picturesque village and have a fab cluster of neighbours that have kids similar ages to mine.
    Change can be difficult but change can also be great. Look up and forward and don’t look back. Youll be happier in yourself for it! Best of luck.

  4. I too was made leave D7. 8 years and it completely changed. Stuck up in Louth now. I really do miss Dublin but we can’t all have liveable wages now can we!

  5. Stoneybatter born and bred and forced to emigrate to beyond the Pale 10yrs ago 🙁
    Lost out to remaining a lical due to a number of reasons, including:

    I work & earn money therefore I must live within my means,

    Many local council tenants had to be rehoused when a regeneration project fell through,

    Stupid government allowed for almalgation of DITs in an area already overpopulated

    Even dummer government extended capital gains tax exemption if investors retain property for 7yrs so even more available property has been swallowed up!!!!

    I just want to live near my ageing parents, ever growing family and not have to commute +2hrs each day to/ from total isolation. Depression sets in

  6. IM paying 750euro for 110sq meter gaff in the city in sweden and its double the wages – so long inner city junkie dogshite town!

  7. Dublin 1 come April in my case likely as getting evicted for de oul re-development reasons. Sickening, sad, scary and all the rest of it, but hoping for something to materialise

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