I have stayed away from this site for quite some time now but happened to take a peek today to see if the tone and tenor had improved.
Cork is Liverpool without the Beatles,
I spent the first 22 years of my life in Cork, I disagree.
The Ring of Kerry is like riding the last mule on the trail. All you see is ass and all you smell is shit. The busses are obnoxious - don't waste your time.
The Ring of Kerry has some of the most beautiful scenery you will see anywhere.
he rest have greasy glop served by chain-smoking hags.
Craic is their national sport after soccer.
Gaelic Football and Hurling are the national games of Ireland.
I would forget about applying for a job with Tourism Ireland.
Obviously, since my posts have a finely honed tendency to rub Aiden the wrong way, any observation about his home country is bound to piss off our resident photography professor (again). I really don't try to pique his ire, but since we cannot even agree on the best aperture or ISO settings for landscape shots, it is unlikely we'd see eye-to-eye about overpriced itchy sweaters or the culinary wasteland of Cork, where the best eatery rates a minus-3 in Michelin stars.
But I digress.
Since I've been publicly scolded and evidently disqualified from a position at the Tourism Ireland (and need not bother to apply for an ambassadorship) - and Aiden is implying the tone and tenor of certain people's posts drove him from the DG - let me further elucidate my positions. 90% of the Ireland experience is absolutely peerless, but as an American, if I am going to cough up the jing to cross the pond, I WANT to know where the warts and pitfalls are. No place is perfect, not even Switzerland.
Let's say, arguendo, you have 10 days to explore Ireland and Ulster. Given time and travel constraints, why in the world would you waste one minute in Cork? It reminds me of a scaled down version of Glasgow, which is like downtown Philadelphia - a steaming turd surrounded by lovely towns and villages. The best way to experience Cork is to wave as you make your way to Kinsale. Hunker down at a corner table in the Finder's Inn and order whatever the waiter recommends. I met John O'Connor there for evening cocktails both nights to hear the story of how Old Head finally came together. Kinsale strikes me as the culinary epicenter of Ireland and truth be told, a romantic place to wander around with the wife.
I'm not going to disagree the Ring of Kerry is a beautiful drive, but when you've got to contend with endless busses belching exhaust and abysmal traffic, well, we lasted about a quarter of the drive and turned around. The same thing can be said about plenty of gorgeous drives in my part of the world - which is why vectoring to Dingle was one of the highlights of our first trip. Once you get to Dingle, the roads get sketchy, but we were virtually alone; it seems like every blind curve revealed an increasingly more beautiful panorama. We drove in an enormous circle, stopping for a long walk into the dunes of the Inch Peninsula. It is the most frighteningly beautiful drive of my life - even beyond the best of Hawaii.
And I'll concede the point about Gaelic football this or hurling that - all I know is that 75% of the conversations between males in an Irish Pub center on something sporting, so please don't pretend Leprechauns are not soccer crazy too. Oddly, golf does not seem as big in Ireland with the average punter as in Scotland, but I could be wrong.