Vantaggi
Great location and easily accessible by public transport but from the bus stops but the pedestrian path to the gate virtually does not exist so do be careful when walking up. Teagasc Ashtown is a fantastic place to build your professional network and learn new skills especially if you are an emerging researcher or contemplating going into industry. They have a diverse, international and crossdisciplinary staff with different backgrounds. There are geographers, horticulturists, microbiologists, biologists, chemists, environmental scientists, food scientists, biotechnologists, industrial scientists and more. Generally, the people are nice and great to work with.
Svantaggi
Having said the positives above, some of the people in management are in really serious need of working on both their leadership and people skills and give people under their management more room for their own creative input and ideas. It's a colossal waste of talent and it's very demotivating. Sometimes the managers have an autocratic style of management which is a terrible choice in research. It should be more laissez-faire. A career in research is stressful enough. Shockingly given the size of the laboratories there they do not have a team of laboratory technicians in Ashtown either.