Donegal - "Best place to live"

Donegal - "Best place to live"

by Matt Britton

Despite all our self - criticism and constantly talking ourselves down as a county, it seems that the rest of the country regard Donegal as the "Best place to live" in the country.

A new survey has found that Co. Donegal was the best and most attractive place to live in the last year while other counties in the North West not faring as well. Sligo was ranked as the 17th. most sought after destination while Lovely Leitrim had the honour of being 26th.

The research was carried out by the website www.likeplace.ie and found that Donegal was the best place to live while Galway fared the worst.

This will come as a surprise to many Donegal residents who frequently visit Galway for shopping, weekend breaks and longer holidays.

The results were based on a variety of topics including law and order, economy and jobs, environment, schools., local services, sense of community and cost of living.

Donegal received over 3,500 ratings and had a score of 4.1 out of a possible 5.

On hearing the result one local businessman in Donegal Town commented, "I suppose it does reflect a lot of the good things that we have in the county such as sense of community, environment, schools, beautiful scenery and probably cost of living.

"However whoever thinks that we are the best place to live in relation to jobs and the economy obviously has blinkered vision - maybe the should come up and live with us for awhile.

"At the height of the Celtic Tiger we had unemployment problems when everywhere else was booming - or should I say, thought they were booming.

"Maybe we are just a pleasant place to live as long as we have a job in Sligo, Galway or Dublin!"