[Closed] Living in Northern Ireland

There is some decent riding in Belfast (near the tow path or Cavehill) but you'll probably want a car to access trails throughout Northern Ireland the rest of the island.
http://www.mountainbikeni.com/
http://www.trailbadger.com/

There is lots to do in Belfast; pretty much similar to any other city. The people (98% of them) are very friendly and helpful.It's also easy to access many other places with good transport links.
http://visit-belfast.com/

Prices are def cheaper than London! Fuel may be slightly dearer than you are used to (where are you coming from?)
http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/city_result.jsp?country=United+Kingdom&city=Belfast
http://www.qub.ac.uk/home/StudyatQueens/UndergraduateStudents/FeesandFunding/Costofliving/

There are areas of Belfast which you probably won't want to live in. Like any city it has good and bad areas. The bad areas tend to be related to the troubles and very homogeneous.

Feel free to get back to me if I can be of help.

As donncha said there are some good trails with more and more being invested in trail centres throughout the country. Two of which IIRC were designed by the same people as BPW so are of a very good standard. I think they aim to have a further 8 trail centres open within the next ten years. Given the size of the country this will mean a very good choice within a relatively small area.

The prices are cheap like a budgie in comparison to London. Probably on par with some of the bigger Scottish cities. There are plenty of nice areas to live but like any big city there are some not so nice areas and with it being Belfast these areas also tend to have underlying issues. These area can easily be avoided so I wouldn't let that sway your judgement.

We are a friendly bunch though so you will be warmly welcomed.

I've been living in Belfast for about 18 years now (I think). I've rented about 20 different houses all over the city and surrounding area so have a fairly good idea.

Currently living in Glengormley which is my favourite so far. Cavehill in my back garden basically. Some of the most tricky technical riding in NI. Always a challenge in the wet and fantastic when dry (however rarely). Also, can get to Davagh in about 50 mins, same for the Mournes. Feel free to ask more questions.

If I was young free and single I might want to live closer to the city centre though, however I wouldn't want to live in the city centre ever, unless you have a superhuman tolerance for drunken rabble.

I moved over nearly three years ago (and took up mountain biking then too :)). My wife is from [url= http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newcastle,_County_Down ]Newcastle[/url], so we didn't have to do too much researching on areas.

We moved from Edinburgh, from a small two bed flat in Newhaven. We had a <1 year old and the Mrs works from home, so there wasn't enough room. There was no way we could afford a three bedroom flat in Edinburgh but we can afford a four bed house walking distance from the beach, Tollymore Forest, Donnard Forest (both excellent mountain biking) a great Golf course if that's your thing (it isn't mine) and a fair amount going on. Castlewellan and Rostrevor are a quick drive away too.

For the first year, while we waited for our flat to sell) we lived with the in-laws (went better than expected) and I commuted to Belfast by bus. It was do-able, but I didn't get to see too much of the little one (home by 6:20, eat dinner then bed and bath time). After a year I changed jobs to one that allowed me to work from home, the bus savings plus a bit more allowed us to rent a two bedroom flat at the foot of the Mournes. Then two weeks later our flat sold! 🙁 Still, in the year that we were in the lease we saved every penny to get a bigger deposit together. A lot of the houses that we liked went off the market (very disappointing), but in the end we found the perfect house. If you took the best bets of the other house and crammed them together, you couldn't beat this house.

Buying houses is incredibly slow, we had the mortgage ready to go and it still took 7 months. We had No. 2 two weeks before moving in. That was... interesting. And we've been here another year now. I can't see us ever moving.

Jobs wise, I was forced to look for another job shortly after moving, but had got used to work from home and seeing so much of the kids. So when contacting recruiters, I made sure that at least 3 days from home per week was a requirement. WFH, isn't as common here, but it is starting to gain traction. In the end I work for a company in England and commute once a month, back the same day. There are enough companies that would be happy with this sort of arrangement that it's not really a problem. Saying that, the commute wasn't bad and when the kids go to school, I might consider it again...

There are other cities too (Lisburn and Newry both have decent jobs markets).

Politics wise, the parties are a bit rubbish. Most of the ones you are used to don't exist here. I can't vote Green, Labour, Lib Dem, UKIP (in alphabetical order). I can vote for Conservatives or parties further right than them, or parties that seem reasonable but then don't turn up to the important votes (even when in the building) so we can't have nice things 🙁

The only trouble I've experienced was when I first moved over - [url= https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belfast_City_Hall_flag_protests ]Flags![/url] it was stupid, by a small amount of people and nobody did anything to stop it. N. Ireland has fairly poor road infrastructure so it is easy to bring Belfast to a stand still with 10s of people. And other towns were blocked with 2-4 people.

Other than that, everything's great 🙂
If you move over, give me a shout and I'll take you round Tollymore. I'm still finding new tracks there.

The trains are pretty good though, according to something I saw on TV recently.

Unfortunately, the trains go nowhere near me 😉

"Politics wise, the parties are a bit rubbish"

I disagree with this. All the parties here are total rubbish!

Wow, thanks for all the advice!

Nothing's confirmed at present, but having had an interview that went a bit better than expected, I thought it best to be prepared!

I do drive, so transport isn't too much of a concern, but the cost of living was a bit of a biggy. I currently live in Caernarfon, which is certainly fairly cheap.

Thanks for putting my mind at ease - if I get offered the job, I'll certainly be back looking for people to show me around!

Thanks again,

Toby

Hey Eltonerino - are you still living in Newcastle?

I'm from NornIron originally and we made/rode the first trails in Donard, Tollymore and off Commedagh in the early 90s

It would be good to get shown around what's there now when I'm back seeing my folks (if you didn't mind!)

Actually I wouldn't mind tagging along to see the trails round Donard & Tollymore sometime.
(warning - I'm very slow uphill and even slower downhill)

Slight hijack..... Tollymore is awesome although some trails are destroyed due to tree felling.

You can join donard & tolly up for a real good 4/5 hour ride, but bring your climbing legs

That 4/5 hr ride sounds good!
Any chance of pm'ing me some directions?

Just to say I left Northern Ireland in 1999 because the outdoors access was so poor. Things may have changed, but on balance if moving for work I'd be looking for a job in Scotland.

I grew up there, it'll always be hone so I am biased.

This thread reminded me we used to sing "Living in Northern Ireland" to the James Brown track, thanks.

@Waderider. Things are awesome now we were just waiting for you to leave. As mentioned above there is a really good mtbing scene here now with a lot being invested in trail centres as well as increased access to natural trails.

Outdoors access was fine bitd - you just opened your door and there it was

Used to get a lot of horsey folk telling us that bikes weren't allowed but a mate worked for the Forestry Commission so we had a blind eye turned. First trails were in Donard - there were two lads doing it before us and we just followed them. The moorland between Donard and Tollymore took us over there where we just found old deer trails and rode them on rigid bikes / canti's and ubrakes. The Donard river trail from the 2nd bridge was my first bit of proper tech - then down Hares Gap and eventually off Commedagh. We did the first DH in Moneyscalp as well - and a few XC races over near Kilkeel and in Castlewellan

Some great biking tho - I went back in the early 2000s and it had all been turned into jumps and washed out corners. Looked like all the natural stuff had gone so I've not been back really (at least to ride).

Plenty of natural trails left in tollymore and donard and they are being added to all the time. A lot of the riders from the good old days are still riding and mostly using the natural trails instead more than the trail centres.

The trail centres we have are mostly very good but the natural riding here is some of the best you will find anywhere. It will be almost impossible to find if you don't know the area but can be found on strava, I use strava heat maps to find new trails.

@tmb467 and @donncha Yeah, I'd be happy to show you around some time. Send me an email, and give me plenty of notice and we can sort something out (I'm usually up early and home by 9am), but can go after work or daytime at the weekend if I have a bit of notice. @donncha, don't worry, I'm slow too 🙂 4th last place overall in the Castlewellan Enduro 😀

I keep finding new trails at Tollymore, including a few that aren't on Strava. It's really easy to ride past some of the best bits and not know it.

Tollymore used to have official "No Mountain Bikes" signs, but they were removed years ago and the forestry service are now very inclusive about access to the forest.

Weeeeeeeeeeee 🙂

You can join donard & tolly up for a real good 4/5 hour ride, but bring your climbing legs

And a granny ring!

As mentioned Cavehill is close and has some great trails, epic in the dry and interesting when wet. There's a shite wee trailcentrey type thing in the city too along with some natural stuff and a few dirt jumping spots.

The Mournes are fairly close and have some fantastic natural riding. We have a few trail centres now which are OK, with Davagh being the best of the bunch imo. Trailbadger ^^ is your friend.

In a follow up to this...

I got offered the job, and am now moving to Belfast at some point in June, which is a result! My sister who lived in Belfast until recently recommended living on the Lisburn Road. So, does anyone know of any accommodation in that area, either room or house? I'm fairly keen to live in Belfast initially, not having lived in a city before and being quite keen to try it!

Congrats.
http://www.propertypal.com/property-to-rent
Lisburn rd/Malone rd are good
As is Ormeau rd/Ravenhill rd

Belfast can funny in one street on a main road can be really nice but the next one can be a bit dodgy.

The Lisburn road is fine, not many dodgy areas. The lower half (beside the railway) of Dunluce/Ulsterville/Ashley/Tates are best avoided since they back on to the [url= http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2004/jan/10/northernireland.race ]Village[/url] with all it's associated racist and sectarian shenanigans. Between the Lisburn and Malone roads is much nicer, and the Malone road very nice, but it has the highest concentration of millionaires in NI so rent can be pretty high.

I used to live [url= http://www.propertynews.com/Property/BELFAST/DMGDMG3837/16b-Adelaide-Park/ ]here[/url] and it was a fantastic spot.