{"id":1548,"date":"2013-03-10T21:04:11","date_gmt":"2013-03-11T04:04:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/traveltattler.com\/?p=1548"},"modified":"2013-03-10T21:07:07","modified_gmt":"2013-03-11T04:07:07","slug":"an-irish-time-of-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/library\/1548\/an-irish-time-of-year","title":{"rendered":"AN IRISH TIME OF YEAR"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The scenic countryside in the Southwest of Ireland, windswept and pastoral, includes both castles and ruins.<\/p><\/div>\n

Take a stroll through Detroit’s Irish Corktown neighborhood on St. Patrick\u2019s Day and you\u2019ll find the holiday has become an outlandish blend of New Year\u2019s Eve, Halloween, Oktoberfest and Mardi Gras! Young women with green and white-striped stockings, orange hair, and bouncing, shamrock antennae springs on their heads swig green beer from plastic cups and dance to The Unicorn song. Men, in tents set up outside the Gaelic League and The Old Shillelagh, fake high-pitched Irish accents that sound more like the Lucky Charms leprechaun than a proper, rolling brogue. They\u2019re celebrating an Americanized version of the Emerald Isle\u2019s religious tradition, as they do in Boston, New York, Savannah and Chicago, where the river is turned green in salute.<\/p>\n

Irishman Conor Cuneen, a motivational consultant who authored \u201cWhy the Irish Never Invaded America,\u201d scratched his head about St. Patty\u2019s Day events when he moved to the United States.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am happily exiled in Naperville, Illinois but I have been force fed more corned beef than I ever had in Ireland,\u201d he insists. \u201cThe natives are friendly, though, and the Guinness is good.\u201d
\nBut not as good as it in Ireland, according to those who know.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Guinness in the U.S. is getting better. There is less difference now than there used to be,\u201d admits Brian O\u2019Callaghan, head golf professional at the tumbling, top-ranked Ballybunion Golf Links along the Atlantic in County Kerry. \u201cThere is a great art to pouring it over here. There is a process and a way of pulling a pint and you\u2019ve got to let it cook for a while before you drink it.\u201d<\/p>\n

O\u2019Callaghan says you won\u2019t find green beer in Ireland, but you will find colorful, local, village parades. \u201cFamilies, kids, schools, businesses and even farmers with tractors will be in the parades.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s after attending morning Mass, of course.<\/p>\n

If your vision of authentic Ireland includes little, white cottages and rainbows over stone-walled green fields, you won\u2019t be disappointed, but you should also remember not all castles you see will be ruins.<\/p>\n

Dromoland Castle Hotel and Country Estate, very near Shannon Airport and close to the Cliffs of Moher, the fairways of Lahinch, Galway and Limerick, lets you live like an ancient Irish king, but with modern, 5-star amenities. \u201cThe castle was built in 1752 and I can\u2019t understand how they survived in it back then with no central heating. A nice power shower wasn\u2019t available back then like it is now in our hotel. I think people were more robust then. We\u2019ve made ourselves too soft by pampering ourselves too much,\u201d joked Mark Nolan, Dromoland\u2019s general manager. Nolan was very comfortable in the hotel, peering out the window at 1,500 acres of pastoral, undulating land and a lake stocked with rainbow and brown trout \u2013 picture perfect Ireland.<\/p>\n

The Republic of Ireland is about the size of Ohio, but don\u2019t over-schedule your visit based on distances between towns or attractions. Driving on the left side of narrow, bumpy roads, and being delayed by sheep herds or wandering cows is part of an Irish adventure. Your best bet is just to get there, relax, and, as Tourism Ireland recommends, \u201cgo where Ireland takes you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Michigan-based travel writer Michael Patrick Shiels may be contacted at InviteYourself@aol.com or via www.TravelTattler.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Take a stroll through Detroit’s Irish Corktown neighborhood on St. Patrick\u2019s Day and you\u2019ll find the holiday has become an… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":1549,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3665,19164],"tags":[1970,414,724148,724138,904,724139,90364,724140,724151,363644,905,724143,724144,1460,724146],"class_list":["post-1548","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-library","category-offcourse","tag-shannon-airport","tag-ireland","tag-cliffs-of-moher","tag-conor-cuneen","tag-lahinch","tag-why-the-irish-never-invaded-america","tag-galway","tag-st-pattys-day","tag-limerick","tag-st-patricks-day","tag-ballybunion","tag-county-kerry","tag-brian-ocallaghan","tag-guinness","tag-dromoland-castle-hotel"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/34\/2013\/03\/DSC00373.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1548","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/43"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1548"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1548\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1553,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1548\/revisions\/1553"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1549"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}