The best town in the world
There are caveats to Skerries’ anointment: Miller does not compare it to other towns in Ireland or elsewhere; his research skewed towards middle-class, older residents; interviewees cited binge-drinking, cocaine use, petty crime and other problems; others lamented the lack of a cinema, hotel or swimming pool.
The overall portrait is of a prosperous, forward-looking community humming with a love of sport – Gaelic football, hurling, rugby, cricket, bowling, sailing, karate, hockey, kitesurfing, sea swimming – plus arts, drama, bridge, bingo and environmental activism.
A thoroughly, overweeningly, totally, bourgeois town of 11,000 people. Almost certainly religiously, ethnically, monocultural.
Hmm. So how’s The Guardian going to spin that as being the finest place in the world to live? The way they’ve done it I guess, to entirely ignore the point.
Some numbers here for the constituency (a 20x sized area) and look at where the non white Irish are concentrated.