DoChara's Ireland Blog
Random Writings about Ireland and the Irish
Blog Archive for 2005
Message in a Bottle
Sunday, October 9 2005
This is kind of exciting! Last January while on holiday in West Palm Beach in Florida my then 6 (now 7) year old, with the aid of the good friend with whom we were staying, carefully prepared a message and put it in a bottle. Launching the bottle proved... [More]
Eating Scenery
Saturday, October 1 2005
Years ago, I hesitate to say how many, I worked for a time in the South Galway/North Clare area in a job that brought me into regular contact with local farmers on their land. I recall pausing on one particularly gorgeous late Spring day to look at a... [More]
Thank goodness for Irish Weather!
Friday, September 23 2005
With the media camped in the Gulf Coast region of the USA, where the weather really is a huge issue with terrible tragedy associated with it, we have good reason to be thankful for the kind of weather we get in Ireland. It may be grey and miserable for... [More]
Changing Times
Monday, September 19 2005
This weekend I spent a little time sweeping leaves from gutters, picked the last of a bumber crop of apples from the three tiny trees in the garden, wore a sweater indoors and lit a fire. Summer is gone. Another reliable sign of the passing of the seasons... [More]
Yakkity Yak
Saturday, September 3 2005
I got a spam email this morning from Euphony Telecom trying to interest me in network marketing their products (ie selling them door to door). According to their website I need no special skills and it could "significantly expand your circle of... [More]
Everything has changed, nothing has changed
Thursday, August 11 2005
It is 10 years since the Internet became a subject of mass interest, rather than some arcane communications thingy for academics and spies, and there is a good article in the Belfast Telegraph giving a potted history of progress since then. It is also... [More]
Sweet Dreams
Saturday, July 23 2005
Statistics just released reveal that stays in B&Bs are down almost 20%. Not long ago this was a booming sector of the accommodation market in Ireland, so what went wrong? There are excellent B&Bs in Ireland, ones that I am happy to recommend... [More]
Dingle Dilemma
Tuesday, July 19 2005
The story of the 'abolition' of Dingle goes on. You may be aware that, officially, Dingle no longer exists. Many of it's citizens are less than impressed by the change in their address to An Daingean and want Dingle back. They are now to... [More]
Tall Ships and Good Humour
Wednesday, July 13 2005
Down to Dunmore East on Saturday to see the tall ships race begin - or not as it turned out, since there was no wind at all. The day was warm, if a little dull and misty, and the ships were glorious and majestic, truly queens of the sea. The place was... [More]
Wild, elemental, exhilarating and ....... indoors?
Wednesday, July 6 2005
Have you been to the Cliffs of Moher? If you live in or have ever visited Ireland the answer is probably yes, more than 750,000 people a year visit them. On a sunny day there is nowhere more lovely and the views out to sea and over the Aran Islands to... [More]
Buying Irish
Wednesday, June 29 2005
Irish language enthusiasts have had cause to celebrate in the last while. There is the business with all the signposts in many of the busiest tourist destinations going monolingual, and the rise and rise of the Gaelscoileanna, [say: gale-skull-enna],... [More]
Green, green grass of home
Friday, June 24 2005
I took this photograph about 5 minutes ago (at about 9.30pm) from an upstairs window, just because everything looks so intensely green this evening. You can almost hear plants growing, like a quiet fizz. The grass was cut only a few days ago but is... [More]
Don't make us hate you!
Wednesday, June 22 2005
We get lots of tourists in Ireland, almost 3.5 million of them in 2004. Every May it's like a flock of migratory birds return, taking up residence in our towns and cities, filling the streets, hotels and pubs until mid-September when they fly away... [More]
Rescuing Tourists
Sunday, June 19 2005
I seem to have developed a little side line in rescuing lost tourists this past few days! This evening I drove down to the shop to buy milk and there met a German couple who were becoming distraught, having spent almost an hour looking for the B&B... [More]
Too Many Jobs?
Friday, June 10 2005
Ireland now has more or less full employment and a record number of new jobs being created. The latest figures from the Central Statistics Office show that we have never had so many people in employment. There was 4.2% unemployment in the first quater... [More]
Don't visit Ireland....
Tuesday, June 7 2005
.... just yet. At least not if you are planning a once in a lifetime trip. Wait. Go to the Caribbean this year, leave Ireland for another time. Now, before the Irish Tourist Board read this and dispatch hit-men, I'd better explain myself fast!... [More]
It wasn't me!
Monday, May 30 2005
Browsing around Google yesterday on the search term 'dochara', just to see if anyone was mentioning us, I saw that someone had posted in the dating section of the Irish Examiner with that username. Coincidentally, about a half-hour later I got... [More]
Ireland of the (conditional) Welcomes
Sunday, May 22 2005
Ireland is lucky on the tourism front. For a small country with mostly horrible weather, architecture that is not a patch on other countries in Europe, a lousy transport infrastructure and an out of the way location we have done very well. Sure we have... [More]
Lost in Translation
Wednesday, May 4 2005
There is a risk that this Summer could see hundreds, if not thousands, of visitors to Ireland wandering forlornly about parts of the West, North West and South West and other Irish* speaking areas, completely lost. Even those with maps are not safe,... [More]
Monkey see, monkey do
Friday, April 29 2005
Next week the primary school my 7 year old attends has a meeting with parents about the school's substance abuse policy. Thankfully this is not in response to any known problem in the school, but simply to fulfill a statutory requirement - all schools... [More]
One door closes, another door closes
Wednesday, April 20 2005
The reaction here to the elevation of "God's rottweiller", Joseph Ratzinger, to Pope has been less than tumultuous to say the least. While his teachings and writings might have had resonance in 1950's Ireland, they sit uncomfortably... [More]
Overflying the curiosities of the agglomeration
Monday, April 18 2005
Yesterday I decided that in order to bring DoChara to the world I would use Google Translate to make copies of the site available in French, German, Italian, Japanese and a host of other languages. Now I know that machine translation is not all it could... [More]
Tipping Here and There
Tuesday, April 12 2005
It was announced today that from May 1st the minimum wage in Ireland will be increased to €7.65 an hour. For American readers that is about $9.80 per hour. I mention this because it reminded me of an evening during a recent trip to the USA when... [More]
Sunday Rituals
Sunday, April 10 2005
It's a sunny Spring Sunday and all over Ireland children are gathered, cleaned and packed into cars as families set out on the short journey to join other families and individuals in observing a familiar ritual. Some of the children resist, but are... [More]
Welcoming Strangers
Saturday, April 9 2005
The doorbell rang this afternoon and I opened the door to find three very tall and handsome rugby-type men standing there. "We are arrived!" said one happily. And they all smiled, evidently expecting me to be delighted with this news. I was... [More]
Mourning the Pope
Friday, April 8 2005
All this week the radio has been alive with demands that today, the day of Pope John Paul's funeral, be a national day of mourning. The main argument has been that as a Catholic country it is something we should do. The government refused, but schools... [More]
Being Prepared for Irish Weather
Thursday, April 7 2005
This morning was lovely, sunny and bright with a real feel of spring, though with a little bite in the air still. I went into town full of the joys of it but of course no sooner had I arrived than the dark clouds rolled in and it started to rain. Heavily.... [More]
Blah, Blah ..... Blaa
Monday, February 28 2005
Benjamin Franklin it was who said "Fish and visitors smell in three days." If that is the case then this place stinks, since we have been favoured by successive waves of visitors non-stop for more than 3 weeks now! In truth it has been fun,... [More]
