The town of Ballymena, in the county of Antrim, Ireland, is one of the most unique towns in a country that is positively silly with unique towns. With a population under thirty thousand, it is easy to overlook Ballymena for larger towns like Belfast but doing so would be a mistake: Ballymena is a town that proudly stands up for itself and its identity. Much of Ballymena's identity has to do with its past and, with the fascinating amount of history that has occurred in the town, there is quite a lot of past to be proud of. To this day Ballymena still hosts the largest one day agricultural fair in the entire country and it also holds a weekly Saturday market that has been in effect for nearly half a millennium.
Ballymena had its share of troubles but the city was comparatively unscathed compared to other places. After all, Ballymena has a rather sizable population. Ballymena has received flack in recent years for the growing prevalence of drugs in the community. The rest of Ireland jokingly refers to Ballymena as the "drug capital of the north" but the police dealing with the frequent drug arrests are most assuredly not laughing at the moniker. At any rate, major steps are being taken to curb the drug problem in Ballymena and the city itself is far more beautiful and fascinating than its frequent legal tangles seem to suggest.
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