A Farewell to Cork Street
October 14th, 2006
At last I have escaped from the chaos of Dublin’s south inner city. No more will I be lulled to sleep by the constant sound of rockets being fired at some guy’s head. I knew the place was a zoo from day one, but, with Halloween approaching, the area really lives up to its local nickname: “Beirut”.
I will miss my Cork Street pals - the insane security guard, the heroin dealer on the corner, and most of all - the toothless old man. The toothless old man walks into the Centra of Death with his bicycle. The insane security guard stops him and says no bicycles are allowed in the shop. The toothless guy replies: “But I have no teeth!”
I have to say though, there are plenty of characters this side of the canal. So far I have encountered an Elvisman, complete with 99 Micra plastered with stickers and slogans of the King. On the same road, I came across a middle-aged man driving along in traffic eating a kinder egg. Next thing he finished the chocolate, and started assembling the toy while booting along at 30mph.
At the moment I’m savouring the tranquility and enjoying my free wireless broadband, Irish Broadband 1meg it seems. Given their reputation, my expectations were very low, but I am pleased to see that not only is this connection working, it is working well. Certainly head and shoulders above Clearwire, who do things the American way - patriotically blocking your bittorrent. I’m not a downloader - I have neither the patience nor the inclination to download movies or anything but the odd mp3, but I have come to rely on bittorrent for legitimate uses; for example - the World of Warcraft updater, installers for programs like cygwin, and access to the occasional legal file which is only distributed via bittorrent.
This isn’t a major issue for me though, and having seen in the past how bittorrent can kill a network, I wouldn’t complain… assuming they made up for it in the other areas. Not the case - you get low bandwidth (1024/256 in theory, much less in practice), Clearwire is expensive (€40 per month), a long minimum contract of 12 months, and a low download cap (10gb). It is handy that it is not dependent on line of sight, but this just leads to high latency and packet loss making the product unsuitable for gaming or VOIP, even with a full signal. I have seen other Clearwire users in different areas with reasonably low and stable ping, but in my own experience, I could only barely manage World of Warcraft, which is playable even on 56k modem or with 800ms lag. I realise that it’s unfair to compare UnClearwire with fixed wireless… the only similar product in Ireland would be Irish Broadband’s disastrous RipoffWave, which I have had the displeasure of using in the past.
This Irish Broadband connection, on the other hand, is cheap and fast with low latency:
PING games1.iol.ie (193.120.123.136) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from games1.iol.ie (193.120.123.136): icmp_seq=1 ttl=56 time=6.85 ms
64 bytes from games1.iol.ie (193.120.123.136): icmp_seq=2 ttl=56 time=96.9 ms
64 bytes from games1.iol.ie (193.120.123.136): icmp_seq=3 ttl=56 time=13.6 ms
64 bytes from games1.iol.ie (193.120.123.136): icmp_seq=4 ttl=56 time=10.2 ms
64 bytes from games1.iol.ie (193.120.123.136): icmp_seq=5 ttl=56 time=70.1 ms
A bit of jitter there, but you’ll get that on most wireless connections. I realise that when things go wrong with IBB, they go very wrong, and I have dealt with their lack of support in the past… but for now I’m not complaining. Despite the apparently solid performance, FPS games are still unplayable, so I have ordered a phoneline to get DSL in too. With a bit (lot) of luck, I won’t have to battle with Eircom every inch of the way, and I might even be connected in time for the Quake 3 TDM Nations Cup, where Ireland has been drawn in a group with:
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Poland |
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Czech Republic |
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October 14th, 2006 at 22:52 pm
Which Irish Broadband product, other than Ripwave that is?
October 15th, 2006 at 0:11 am
I’m assuming its Breeze, fixed wireless which does require line of sight, unlike Ripwave:
http://www.irishbroadband.ie/products_display.php?id=83
October 15th, 2006 at 11:48 am
I can’t comment on the geeky stuff, but I used to live on Maxwell Street just off Cork Street. It was at the start of the rejuvenation (5/6 years ago) and I never really had any hassle. There was a mad alcoholic on my street who set his house on fire making chips after the pub one night. I can’t remember if it was a Micra or not, but I think I’ve seen the Elvis dude you’re taking about. Old ladies used to sidle up to me and grill me in a nosey granny way. It was as if they stood behind their net curtains waiting for me to leave and then would pounce on me as I was putting on the chubb lock.
Did you ever brave a pint in one of the pubs? The Stork always struck me as the kind of pub someone was going to shot in, bu I’ve been to the other one (can’t remember the damn name now but it’s still there. Think it begins with M. Morrisseys maybe?)
October 15th, 2006 at 12:06 pm
I’ve been in Morrisseys before I knew it was one of the dodgiest IRA pubs in Dublin, apparently. I had taxi drivers say that they never pick anyone up in the area because of that pub. About someone getting shot - the two guys who were shot on Cameron Street (just across from Morrissey’s) two months ago had just left a pub and been followed out, apparently. It didn’t say which pub but there aren’t too many in the vicinity.
To be fair, I never personally had hassle either, just my car stereo stolen, windows downstairs being smashed, but what a difference it makes to head a few blocks south - last night was Saturday night and there were no sirens, no fights outside the window, no fireworks… and the local Centra staff aren’t trained in ten different types of martial arts. When I get into my car today, it will probably still have its steering wheel, and when I stop at traffic lights, I probably won’t have heroin addicts banging on the window looking for money. Small comforts… but the funny thing is the rent around here is cheaper than on Cork St.
October 15th, 2006 at 12:09 pm
Where did you move to?
October 15th, 2006 at 12:11 pm
A quiet side street in Harold’s Cross.
October 15th, 2006 at 12:22 pm
Hurrah!
I have a soft spot for Cork Street as my mam was born in the back of the old post office (thankfully it wasn’t a post office then).
I’m in Dublin 12, right in the hard of the RTE-prefixed ‘gangland’. Never see anything exciting though, and any time I walk past the Old County pub, I’m convinced one of the heads outside is going to get shot while outside for a fag. Two lads on a motorbike slowing down near there can fairly quicken the heart.
October 15th, 2006 at 12:49 pm
I can understand that - coming from Cork City I’m probably seeing things through an anti-Dublin bias (and slightly prone to exaggeration). I know what you mean about about the motorbikes in D12 though… especially considering the nature of the shooting of that garda in Crumlin last week. I was down in Crumlin Shopping Centre the other night muttering a decade of the rosary under my breath as I dodged bullets and syringes on my way back to the car
May 24th, 2007 at 10:55 am
I’ve lived there for about half a year and the worsed thing I’ve witnessed was a car getting burnt out. The Fire team responded in about less than 5 minutes, i was amazed at the speed of the response. Some of the empty double glazed commerce units at the bottom had been smashed right through the other day, thats about it. To be honest I feel a lot safer living in corkstreet than I ever did living in central middlesbrough, where people were constantly getting raped/mugged beaten to death, overdosing, joy riding setting fire to cars.
July 2nd, 2007 at 5:32 am
Hi James
Amusing articles
I’m a Dubliner in Dublin! Would you believe - I came across your site by doing a Google search on “Irish Broadband hackers”!
hehe
regards, John
August 3rd, 2007 at 21:17 pm
Hi James,
I’m from Cork too, but have pretty much lived all over Dublin, from Phibsborough to Lucan to Monkstown in the past 6 years!
I’m now about to enter the world of Cork street with my girlfriend who is slightly concerned about the place…She’s Italian, I keep just telling her if anyone say’s anything tell em their messing with the Daughter of a Mafia boss and mutter something in Italian at em!!
Seriously though, any words of advice? Streets to avoid as such!!? For example is it safe to walk home there at night?
Cheers,
Will
August 4th, 2007 at 18:53 pm
Will, I got some flak for talking about Cork St. this way… I did exaggerate a bit, but since then I have been repeatedly proven right about how dodgy the area is. I mentioned the ‘Centra of Death’ in my previous post, and the owner of the shop posted here to imply that I was exaggerating, and soon afterwards what happened? A woman was walking home at night via Cork St., and someone started following her outside of the Centra, and stabbed her with a knife. My honest advice is to get taxis at night to your door. Streets to avoid: in my opinion basically the whole area from South Circular Road to the Liffey. I’m sure there are plenty of residents who will disagree with me, but it is not worth the risk. I spent only a few months in the area, and I witnessed and heard of more incidents in that time than the rest of my life combined.