The Wild Atlantic Way: A Breathtaking Journey

For those of you interested in such things, Ireland has a new tourist trail that you'll be hearing quite a bit about: The Wild Atlantic Way.  Invariably dreamed up by some marketing mandarin in the sacred halls of the Irish Tourist Board, this immense trail - the longest in Ireland - is definitely worth talking about. Why? Because it offers some of the most scenic tours in the country and is well worth considering.

This 'Road Odyssey' was launched to great fanfare by the government who takes much pleasure in such pronouncements. The 2,500 km (approx 1500 mile) journey stretches from Donegal's Malin Head, along the entire West Coast of Ireland, finally ending at Mizen Head in County Cork. It is not only the longest single tourist route in Ireland, but also the country's first long distance driving route. The idea, of course, is to plant the Wild Atlantic Way into the minds of potential global tourists, hoping to replicate the same reverence as Route 66 and the Pacific Coast Highway in the United States.

Fifteen hundred miles of smashing western coastline is a bit much to drive in a single trip, of course. So what Wild Atlantic Way marketers have done is to break it up into four bite-sized segments:

Northwest - including Donegal, Leitrim & Sligo
The West - including Mayo and Galway
Midwest - including Clare and Limerick
Southwest - with Kerry and Cork

Each segment offers geographies, micro-environments, and vistas that are unique. The great hope, of course, is that tourists will flock to visit one segment then come back to complete the entire Odyssey.

Planning and Information
Failte Ireland has done a great job of trumpeting this new journey and a wide range of websites are available that describe each segment.  http://www.ireland.com/en-gb/wild-atlantic-way goes into great detail regarding each drive and provides online methods to book; http://www.activeme.ie/guides/driving/wild-atlantic-way-scenic-drive-west-of-ireland/ offers detailed maps of each segment together with points of interest; a February 2014 article in the Irish Independent (http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/10m-wild-atlantic-way-driving-route-launched-30047238.html) goes out of its way to report that the Irish government is spending up to €10 million to support and promote the spectacular drive.

And while I have not driven all of it, what Ireland is promoting is not mere propaganda. For I've found that the West Coast of Ireland offers some of the most spectacular scenery in the world and the Wild Atlantic Way is a method of promoting it as a whole.  Over the years I've had opportunities to visit Donegal and its amazing beaches whose azure waters would not be out of place in the Caribbean; Galway, with Connemara, its splendid scenery, and quick side trips to the Aran Islands; Clare and yes, Limerick, and the unique ecosystems that the area has to offer; and Cork - did I mention that I live in County Cork? - offering scenery and coastlines that I believe are unrivaled anywhere.

If you're planning a trip to Ireland, perhaps have a look at what The Wild Atlantic Way has to offer. No matter which segment you choose I'm certain that it will offer memories that you will long cherish.

A Survivor's Guide to Living in Ireland 2014 Kindle Edition Available Now

Want to learn more about living in Ireland? Are you thinking of traveling to Ireland or moving to Ireland? If so, you might consider the purchase of the 2014 Kindle ebook edition of A Survivor's Guide to Living in Ireland. Now 80,000+ words long, and having sold over 10,000 copies in its various editions, it could make the perfect gift for those interested in this wonderful country. Simply click on any of the links above to purchase this new Kindle version. You can also download various free aps to read this Kindle version on any PC or Mac. 

Falling Unemployment Rate Signals Jobs Growth

Recently, I heard a strange news report on the radio.  A large flock of sheep were blocking the M50, one of Dublin's largest motorways. Invariably, the woolly flock was protesting the imminent start of Lent and the Easter season, during which millions of Irish people turn to Lamb as a main course.  Sheep, as you can imagine, aren't particularly pleased with such practices. Hence, the protest. 

A year ago, blocking the M50 would not have been an effective use of sheep power because this vital artery was almost empty. Because so many people had lost their jobs, I suspect that the local councils were considering turning motorways into expansive football pitches just to use up the vacant concrete. But now, a year later, Ireland's economy is getting back on track. The M50 is buzzing again and sheep will have to find a different way to protest their victim-hood.  And a buzzing M50 means that Ireland’s job market is picking up too.  So....

If you're considering a move to Ireland, now just might be the time.

According to Ireland's Central Statistics Office (www.cso.ie) unemployment is falling like a brick and now stands at 11.9 percent.  This is slightly above the European Union average, but considering the lousy state of the economy only months ago, Ireland seems to be turning a corner.

A wide range of sectors are now looking to fill key positions with the skills of talented people.  Information technology, tourism-related accommodation and food service jobs, and administration and support services activities would seem to be leading the comeback.  Even construction jobs are gaining ground, with almost 7,000 more people employed today than a year ago. The Irish Independent, one of Ireland's largest newspapers, reports "The Irish economy will pick up speed this year....There are indications that domestic demand is starting to perform more strongly....The (Irish) economy is set to expand 1.8 percent (in 2014) and 2.9 percent (in 2015)." The article also points out that the UK economy - Ireland's largest trading partner - is booming strongly which will contribute to continued growth for Ireland.

Of course, there are still dark clouds on the horizon that could scuttle the upturn. Ireland's open economy is still heavily in debt. We'll all be paying off the cost of this Great Recession for generations to come. Ireland's banking system is now less competitive because a number of banks either exited the market or went out of business during the past few years.  This makes getting a loan, mortgage, or small business credit facility difficult. The lack of a competitive banking system, and the low-risk strategy adopted by the remaining banks, could derail Ireland's recovery (and its job market) because the lack of monetary infusion could deflate Ireland's fragile recovery.  

International tensions could also negatively impact the country.  For instance, Putin's Crimean land grab could result in mayhem across Europe as the EU applies sanctions against Russia and Russia responds in kind. Ireland could suffer greatly if tensions escalate.

But for now, all seems positive enough. In fact, the outlook of many Irish people is more positive than it's been since 2007 and the start of the recessionary disaster. 

If you're thinking of getting work in Ireland, simply Google 'Ireland jobs' or similar key phrases. Alternatively, see the list of links at the right hand side of this Blog. But if you're coming over, do it soon. Before the sheep finally get really nasty and turn the M50 into pasture. 

A Survivor's Guide to Living in Ireland 2014 Kindle Edition Available Now

Want to learn more about living in Ireland? Are you thinking of traveling to Ireland or moving to Ireland? If so, you might consider the purchase of the 2014 Kindle ebook edition of A Survivor's Guide to Living in Ireland. Now 80,000+ words long, and having sold over 10,000 copies in its various editions, it could make the perfect gift for those interested in this wonderful country. Simply click on any of the links above to purchase this new Kindle version. You can also download various free aps to read this Kindle version on any PC or Mac. 

Beara Peninsula, A Hidden Irish Gem

First published on CNN, March 2014. For the original article go to http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-1107155.

As an American living in Ireland since 1982, I finally left the big smoke of the Dublin area to find a bit of serenity.  It took awhile to locate, this amazing place. But I've decided to let you in on the secret: if you're looking for serenity in Ireland, as well as some absolutely wonderful vistas, you could do much worse than the Beara Peninsula and the tiny village of Eyeries County Cork.

Located 5 hours southwest of Dublin and only 2 hours from Cork International Airport, Beara is a hidden gem of solitude. One that many have never heard of.

What makes Beara Special?
It's a small place, is Beara. A rugged, isolated spot filled with mountains, sea, sky, and yes, Irish rain. Many have heard of County Kerry and the Dingle Peninsula. Or the other tourist spots like Killarney, the Cliffs of Moher, and Galway. Often these places are thronged with visitors.  But few have heard of Beara and that's what makes it so special.

I landed here just over three years ago, a guy intent on finding some peace and a little bit of friendship. What I found here has renewed my spirit with wonder.

I bought a small blue cottage in Eyeries, a little village of only 65 people. Whoops, make that 66 including me. It sits on the single main street populated by such houses all sporting different pastel colours - a rainbow of living spaces that brings the village to life. It's so pretty that Bord Failte, the Irish tourist board, often showcases it as an example of Irish village life.

There's not much in Eyeries, to be frank. The houses as mentioned, of course. A Post Office. A couple of shops. The church. Two pubs (how could we ever not have a pub?) that welcome visitors with some of the best pints of Guinness I've ever tasted in this country.

Then there are the people: the fishermen, farmers, artists, poets and writers who live here. All welcoming. Grousing about the weather as they greet me because it's been blowing a gale since late December with winds up to 100 mph. Rattling on about the dire economy over endless cups of tea or pints of Black. Or screaming my ear off as the Irish Rugby team beats France by only two points in a squeaker to win the Six Nations Cup. (Oh we were so delighted to get one over on the English this time!)

It's a small wondrous tapestry, is this part of the world. And what glitters most in this lost corner of Ireland is the scenery. The blue house I live in might not look much from the main street. But come inside and it's a different matter and you'll soon learn why I fell in love with the place.

Walk through the living room and into the back room. A picture window frames an amazing vista: that's Coulaugh Bay just in front of you. The Wild Atlantic beyond. Scarrif Island is the big one that flounders in the distance, looking like a restless whale. To the right, the mountains of Kerry wander down to the sea.

Walk out the back door if you care to. The wind blows and from the back deck you'll hear gulls cry and billowing waves crash onto the rocks a quarter of a mile away and a hundred feet below. If the sun is shining - a rare enough event - the Bay glitters as if St Patrick had dusted it with glinting silver coins. Or on bad days, sit and watch as the seas roar in, their throaty welcome seeming to shake the house even from this far away; their wild confusion both breathtaking and frightening. It's on days like this that I'm glad I'm not a fisherman, working a half-decker to catch my quota of mackerel, but instead sipping tea inside the warmth of the house.

And beyond Eyeries lies the balance of the Peninsula pointing like a westerly finger into the Atlantic. There's Allihies at its western most point, a small village made famous by its copper mines. When the mines closed a hundred years ago, the miners picked up and settled in Butte, Montana giving that locality a decidedly Irish flare. Drive on down to visit the museum and rest yourself on the soft sands of the village's wonderful beach. When you're finihsed sunning yourself, drive east to the town of Castletownbere, one of the largest fishing harbors in Ireland. During WW I, and just off the coast, the British hid their entire Atlantic Fleet from prowling U-Boats, so deep is that part of the Bay.

Then keep driving east along the northerly coast of Bantry Bay. The Slieve Mishkish Mountains, the spine of Beara Peninsula, accompany you all the way, their bald sheer cliffs painted green and yellow in summer with blooming heather.

And you're then in Glengarriff, home until recently of actress Maureen O'Hara of The Quiet Man fame. It's during this drive that you can look back at the serenity of it all, knowing that only three thousand other human beings call Beara their home. And that you, lucky person, have left the maddening tourist trail to discover the beauty of this area for yourself.

The Beara Peninsula is a hidden gem buried deep within the wilderness of Ireland's Wild West. Few seem to know about it, not even the Irish. We'd like to keep it that way, of course. But if you, like me, require a much needed rest; long for some tranquility; want to get off the tourist trail to experience vistas that are some of the best in all of Ireland, I'm sure that the welcoming people of Beara will let you stay. Why wouldn't they? They let me stay, after all. I'm sure they'll extend you the same welcome.

For more on Eyeries and the Beara Peninsula, go to http://www.eyeries.ie. And for more stories about one Yank's adventures of learning to live and survive in Ireland, go to http://survivingireland.blogspot.com.

Happy Saint Patrick's Day to all and I'll hoist a few for all CNN viewers. In fact, that's what I'll do right now!

My very best  - Tom

A Survivor's Guide to Living in Ireland 2014 Kindle Edition Available Now

Want to learn more about living in Ireland? Are you thinking of traveling to Ireland or moving to Ireland? If so, you might consider the purchase of the 2014 Kindle ebook edition of A Survivor's Guide to Living in Ireland. Now 80,000+ words long, and having sold over 10,000 copies in its various editions, it could make the perfect gift for those interested in this wonderful country. Simply click on any of the links above to purchase this new Kindle version. You can also download various free aps to read this Kindle version on any PC or Mac. 

Drowning the Shamrock on Paddy's Day

For those of you not in the know, St. Patrick's Day is Ireland's equivalent of July 4th. Only without the national anthem or the nationalism. In Ireland, we don't get all soppy when waving the flag. We don't sing the Irish National Anthem in the middle of a parade. In fact the Irish Anthem, "Amhran na bhFiann" (go to YouTube for a great version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QV7lGmgFovM) isn't exactly conducive for such use. Unlike the US or UK national anthems, with their bold scoring and  rousing lyrics, the Irish Anthem is - well - gentle.

Play the Irish Anthem in a parade and the soft heart of its music and lyrics will be lost in the coughing roar of rusting tractors used to pull tiny floats created by locals for tuppence and flouting the benefits of the town's insurance company, or the raucous out-of-tune pipe and drum band that never quite gets the beat right, or the reams of kids crying to go home because it's cold and lashing rain and why would anyone in their right minds want to stand watching a boring old St Patrick's Day parade in the roaring rain anyway?

You see, it is always cold and rainy on St Patrick's Day. We count on that. The March sun might be blazing in the morning, but by the time the parade starts and as entire communities pour down main streets throughout Ireland to attend their local parade, dark thunderous clouds will have rolled in. The temperatures will plummet, the sleeting rain will set in, and we'll all be miserable. Kids' smiles will turn to tears and parents will desperately try to rescue the situation with a little gentle coaching as in, "Ah fer feck sake, Johnny. We came all the way down here to watch the parade. Now watch it or we're going home and you won't be allowed any Telly tonight." Which only results in the kids crying even harder.

Ah St. Patrick's Day. Honestly, you'd think it to be a time of misery. We've the weather to contend with, of course, but then there's the matter of Lent which contributes to everyone's general distress. If you're not Catholic, you might not know what Lent is. Most have possibly heard of Fat Tuesday made popular by the Mardi Gras. That day is one of feasting, knowing that we're going to be deprived of something or other for the next forty days. On Fat Tuesday in Ireland, everyone eats pancakes. Now these are not U.S. pancakes. Rather, they're Irish pancakes - skinny little things that might look a bit like crepes only they're not. The shops sell plastic bottles of inadequate Pancake Batter in the weeks coming up to Fat Tuesday. When poured, it turns out to be a watery mixture that doesn't come close to the hearty Bisquick pancakes that my mother used to make.

The Irish pour all sorts of stuff over them: jam, lemon juice, some sort of maple stuff that aspires to be maple syrup but isn't. Then they hoist them into their gobs, often hating the damned things, but it's tradition so what the heck and at least their stomachs are full.

Then the next day is Ash Wednesday and everyone troops down to the Church for Mass. They emerge an hour later with dark ashes in the shape of a cross dobbed onto their foreheads. It might be a blessing, but it's a desperate one because we all know that we're now staring 40 more days of penury in the face.

Penury is, of course, what you make of it. It's not like the old days when people had nothing to give up but were taunted by the Church to give up even more. Today, it's more of a reminder: Jesus suffered 40 days in the desert. So now it's your turn. The Church hands out cardboard Trocara boxes. These sit on coffee tables throughout the country. Irish folks everywhere throw spare change into them - change that many can now ill afford - and at the end of Lent the money is sent overseas to help those even less fortunate than the Irish in recession. We're also encouraged by the Church and tradition to give up something. Many give up their mother-in-law. Some give up cigarettes. But many more throw caution to the wind and give up what they hold most dear:

The dreaded drink.

So is it any wonder that parents across the country are so dour during the St Patrick's Day parade? Many are probably still suffering from the DTs and are close to madness due to Lent and abstinence.

BUT, and here's the thing. They're also cross due to anticipation. And what do they anticipate? Why Drowning the Shamrock on St Patrick's Day, of course. And here's how it works.

After the parade, everyone troops home. There, they'll sit down to dinner which consists of mashed potatoes with bacon and cabbage (another time honored St Pat's tradition) that's been on the boil for the past 20 hours and sits on the plate like some sort of appalling sludge. Then, with bellies full, and while it might be only 2 in the afternoon or so, they'll walk out the door and make their way to the local pub.

For reasons that I have never understood, Lent's fastings are shelved on St Paddy's Day. So it's no breach of abstinence to have a good few pints on the day. Which makes the day even more fun because we all behave rather like kids mitching from school for a free day off: we're all getting away with something. We take this break from dourness to make sure that we don't all go around the twist before the real end of Lent some three weeks hence.

So we'll walk through the rain to the Local and there we'll sit back and join in the revelry. We'll have a pint or two. A hot whiskey or maybe three. An Irish Coffee or maybe five. We'll sing songs and laugh and enjoy each other's company. And for a moment, we'll forget about being soaked to the skin at the parade, and of the Lenten fast that we've all endured, and the fact that it's still raining buckets outside and Spring isn't set to truly start for a good few weeks yet.

And having drunk what we've drunk, and at the end of the night, someone might yet break into a soft gentle version of the Irish Anthem. In the quiet warmth of the local, you can hear the warming words sung by Irish everywhere. Words that only now, on this day of nation's pride, can be fully appreciated.

Happy St Patrick's Day. And do yourself a favor: drown the Shamrock this coming 17th March, will ya? Before ya drive everyone around ya completely bonkers.

A Survivor's Guide to Living in Ireland 2014 Kindle Edition Available Now

Want to learn more about living in Ireland? Are you thinking of traveling to Ireland or moving to Ireland? If so, you might consider the purchase of the 2014 Kindle ebook edition of A Survivor's Guide to Living in Ireland. Now 80,000+ words long, and having sold over 10,000 copies in its various editions, it could make the perfect gift for those interested in this wonderful country. Simply click on any of the links above to purchase this new Kindle version. You can also download various free aps to read this Kindle version on any PC or Mac.