Ireland (Lonely Planet, 9th Edition) - Fionn Davenport [0]
Destination Ireland
Getting Started
Itineraries
History
The Culture
Food & Drink
Environment
Dublin
Counties Wicklow & Kildare
Counties Wexford, Waterford, Carlow & Kilkenny
County Cork
County Kerry
Counties Limerick & Tipperary
County Clare
County Galway
Counties Mayo & Sligo
County Donegal
The Midlands
Counties Meath, Louth, Cavan & Monaghan
Belfast
Counties Down & Armagh
Counties Derry & Antrim
Counties Fermanagh & Tyrone
Directory
Transport
Health
Language
Glossary
The Authors
Behind the Scenes
Map Legend
Return to beginning of chapter
Destination Ireland
In 2008 an ad for a local bread manufacturer ran on Irish TV, featuring two men building an old-style, traditional stone wall in Connemara. As they work, a woman approaches with a tray of avocado-and-prawn sandwiches, also doling out a green tea and a skinny latte. When one of the men takes a phone call on his mobile, he turns down a request saying he has his Pilates class that evening.
The ad captured the Irish Zeitgeist perfectly, portraying the two distinct sides of a country that has undergone huge, transformative change yet remained largely the same. On the one hand, there’s the New Ireland, a land of motorways and multiculturalism, planned and developed in between double decaf lattes and time out at the latest spa for a thermal mud treatment. The economy may have taken a massive hit in the last year or so, but the country has found a new level of cosmopolitanism and sophistication that it’s not likely to lose anytime soon. Ireland’s other personality, however, is a little more traditional and, if the regular polls of departing tourists are to be believed, still holds the key to Ireland’s draw as a tourist destination.
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FAST FACTS
Population: 4.3 million (Republic), 1.7 million (Northern Ireland)
Unemployment rate: 12.1% (Republic), 6.2% (Northern Ireland)
Inflation: 2.6%
Territory size: 70,300 sq km
Annual earnings from tourism: €6.3 billion
Mobile phone subscriptions in Ireland: 5 million
Number of visiting tourists per year: 7.8 million
Irish adults who have satellite TV: 25%
Biggest no-no: Saying ‘begorrah’ (they’ll just laugh at you)
Second-most spoken language: Irish
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At the heart of it all is the often-breathtaking scenery, still gorgeous enough to make your jaw drop, despite the best efforts of developers to scar some of the most beautiful bits with roundabouts, brutal suburbs and summer bungalows. From the lonely, wind-lashed wilderness of Donegal to the postcard landscapes of western Cork, Ireland is one of the world’s most beautiful countries, and worth every effort you make to explore it. And we mean, of course, the whole island, including the North – for so long scarred by conflict but now finally engaged in the process of recovery, able to once again parade its stunning self to a world that for so long only heard about the province’s troubles on the evening news.
But the overwhelming popularity of scenic superstars like Connemara and Kerry has seen the emergence of quieter idylls as the preferred destination of the discerning traveller, who has discovered the beauty of the lakes of Roscommon and the villages of Waterford, of rarely visited counties like Westmeath. These are the areas where you can come into contact with a more genuine Ireland, the kind removed from the slick machinery of the tourist trail.
Ireland is a complex, often contradictory country, and those contradictions are evident everywhere you go, from the thatched rural pub advertising its wi-fi connection and imported Australian wines to the group of Polish-born school kids chatting away to each other in Irish. No sooner do you make an assumption about the place than something will confound you completely, leaving you no wiser than before you began. But don’t worry, you’re in good company: most of the Irish are as perplexed about it as you are.
All of this confusion hardly fits the traditional, time-worn view of a nation of affable people made happy by the conviviality of