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 The Information about Ireland Site Newsletter 
                   July 2007
 
The Newsletter for people interested in Ireland 
 Now received by over 50,000 people worldwide 
      https://www.ireland-information.com 
          https://www.irishnation.com
              Copyright (C) 2007  

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		IN THIS ISSUE
=== Foreword
=== News Snaps from Ireland 
=== New free resources at the site
=== On the Magic and Modernisation of Ireland
=== A surprising Irish trip 	by Carol Martin
=== Mermaid in a Bowl of Tears  by Cindy Brandner 
=== Hear her Whisper ­ Answer her Call  by NJ Bryan
=== Gaelic Phrases of the Month
=== Shamrock Site of the Month:	celticattic.com
=== Monthly free competition result

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FOREWORD
========

Hello again from Ireland which has just 
experienced one of the wettest Junes in recent 
history! The Irish weather has been the subject 
of much discussion recently with global warming 
taking its share of the blame. Whatever the 
cause, the Irish can still laugh about it as 
evidenced by the recent contribution from an 
unknown author below.

~~~
It only rains twice in Ireland: August through 
April and May through July
~~~
Question: What do you call 2 straight days of 
rain in Ireland?
Answer: A weekend.
~~~
A tourist arrives in Ireland where it is raining. 
The following day it rains and the day after that 
it rains again. Finally, in despair, he calls out 
to a local kid: 'Hey kid, does it ever stop 
raining here? 'How do I know..' the kid replies, 
'....I'm only 6.'
~~~

Until next time, very best from Ireland

Michael


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NEWS SNAPS FROM IRELAND
=======================
 
QUALITY OF LIFE IN IRELAND HAS IMPROVED

A new report by the Economic and Social Research 
Institute (ESRI) has revealed that the Celtic 
Tiger years (the name given to Ireland's recent 
economic advances) have greatly increased the 
quality of life here.

Poverty has declined and people have more cash 
to spend on not just the necessities but the 
luxuries of life. Recent media focus on the 
decline in 'community values' as well as TV 
programmes that reflect how much life has changed 
in the last 2 decades have led some spectators to 
declare that the economic boom is not all that 
it is cracked up to be!
 
Religious and academic commentators have 
repeatedly been given print and air-time to 
lament the loss of 'old Ireland' in favour of a 
new materialistic country.

Certainly the report by the ESRI would lend 
support to this assertion in a number of areas. 
New apartment blocks have little or no sense of 
community compared to the older Council apartment 
blocks and estates. People also have to spend 
much more time travelling to and from work 
compared to their parents.

The report is adamant however, that these problems 
are nothing when compared to the desperate poverty, 
social exclusion and emigration that was the 
pattern of many peoples lives in Ireland right up 
to the start of the 1990s. Morale among the Irish 
is now among the highest in Europe, according to 
the report. It further claims that the fact that 
people from the EU and beyond are migrating into 
Ireland in huge numbers is evidence of the fact 
that Ireland is a good place to be.

IRISH TOURISM THRIVES DESPITE THE RAIN

The wettest Irish Summer in years has failed to 
dampen the spirits of those in the Irish tourist 
industry. Recently released figures show that 
over 7.4 M'illion visitors landed in Ireland in 
2006, a 10% jump on the previous year. Native 
Irish tourists opted to visit the south-west 
(Counties Cork and Kerry) the most, with the 
western region (Galway and Mayo) the next most 
popular.

The historic properties run by the Office of 
Public Works continue to be big attractions. 
Kilkenny Castle, Dublin Zoo, Newgrange, the 
Botanic Gardens and a myriad of other sites 
are all big tourist draws. The ongoing 
development of these tourist attractions is 
also providing a better experience for the 
hundreds of thousands of visitors who flock to 
them annually. 

The Cliffs of Moher is a case in point. Over 
900,000 visited the magnificent scenery at the 
cliffs in 2006 but the facilities t the County 
Clare landmark had been modest at best (perhaps 
ramshackle would have been a better word). But 
no more! A new visitors centre that was opened 
last February has brought the facility into the 
twentieth-first century.

Further proof that investment in tourist sites 
can reap huge dividends is evidenced by the 
Guinness Hopstore being revealed as the number 1 
fee-paying tourist attraction in 2005. Guinness 
really is good for you!

CHEWING GUM LEVY TO BE IMPLEMENTED

The green agenda continues to be pursued by the 
Irish government who have the chewing-gum hordes 
in their sights. 

Chewing gum and fast food litter are among the 
most widespread and difficult-to-clean sources of 
litter in Ireland. The removal of sticky gum from 
public areas costs local authorities m'illions 
every year. A tax is to be introduced in 2009 
which will either force the gum and fast-food 
providers to pay for the clean up or alternatively 
directly tax the products themselves.

The recent 'plastic bag tax' that was introduced 
in Ireland has removed and estimated 1 b'illion 
bags from circulation and thus kept them out of 
landfill sites. This successful initiate is 
being copied by other countries.

FIRST IRISH GOLF MAJOR WINNER FOR 6 DECADES

Padraig Harrington became the first Irish winner 
of one of golfs major tournaments in over 6 
decades when he claimed the British Copen Golf 
Championship after a thrilling play-off victory 
over Spain's Sergio Garcia.


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https://www.ireland-information.com/cgi-bin/newsletterboardindex.cgi

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NEW FREE RESOURCES AT THE SITE
==============================

FREE KIDS GAMES TO PRINT:

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kids about Ireland:

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NEW COATS OF ARMS ADDED TO THE GALLERY:

The following 6 coats of arms images and family
history details have been added to the Gallery:

A: McAlinden, Anglin
K: O'Keefe
N: Nash, Nesbitt
Q: Quinlan

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ON THE MAGIC AND MODERNISATION OF IRELAND
=========================================
by JJ Beazley

There is something magical about Ireland. Coming 
from an Englishman, such a statement is 
predictable and virtually indisputable. I say 
'virtually' because there are those who would 
claim that the sentiment is mere whimsy. 
I disagree.

I do realise that Ireland, Irishness, Irish 
culture ­ call it what you will ­ has certain 
flaws (as defined by my sensibilities, at least), 
and yet I'm convinced there really is a magic 
there. It's quite unique ­ quite different from 
any other European culture. You can hear it in 
the melodic structures of the music, and the 
sound of the bodhran. You can see it in the eyes 
of the people, from the Sligo fiddler to the 
Dublin waif. You can almost smell it in the folk 
tales and the image of the misty glen. And yet it 
remains elusive. You can't quite put your finger o
n what it is ­ or, at least, I can't. There's 
something hard about it, and something soft about 
it. But there's also an ethereal undertone that 
lends an air of tantalizing mystery. And I've 
noticed that Irish masculinity can be so fierce 
and combative, and yet so unashamedly sensitive 
to the more rarefied values of life. Irish women 
have the same quality, although the emphasis is 
probably reversed!

And that's why there is something worrying me. 
So much of what I read about Ireland these days
 seems to focus on the issue of modernisation. 
I'm not blind to the fact that modernisation is 
inevitable, and even desirable up to a point. 
Life changes - it always has. But when a culture 
starts relying on it exclusively, that culture 
can easily fall into the grip of two potentially 
destructive forces: power politics and 
self-serving economic interests. We are told that 
the Irish are proud to be taking their place as 
mainstream Europeans, that the economy is 
booming, and economic growth is doing well.

Let's just look at what economic growth really 
means. It means encouraging a syndrome of 
production and consumption, a system designed to 
make people want more and buy more. That creates 
the opportunity to produce more, and the same 
people can earn more money by so doing. Thus 
they become more prosperous and everybody is 
happy. It sounds good on the surface but, like 
so many surface impressions, it's a thin veneer 
that hides a dark interior. 

What really happens is this. It encourages an 
unquestioning reliance on an increasingly free 
market economy, one in which the pre-eminent 
factor is the profit motive. Public need and 
service always come second best, indeed, they 
only counts at all if and when they are deemed 
necessary to further the interest of profit. If 
ever the two come into conflict, as they 
frequently do, profit comes first. It has to, 
that fact is endemic in the system. It engenders 
in the minds of people the sad notion that worth 
is to be measured by material possessions. 
Further still, it encourages people to believe 
that only by having these possessions can they 
belong. And it lives on the competitive principle. 
Competition is good, the rich and powerful tell 
us. It is in certain places, like the sports 
field. But competition inevitably produces 
winners and losers. In a wholly free market 
economy, there are only a few real winners. The 
majority of the population become more and more 
stressed by the growing imperative to 'shop till 
you drop', and the greatest losers form a 
burgeoning underbelly that grows ever more 
frustrated, angry and dangerous. We in Britain 
have been following that road for nearly thirty 
years and the effects are clear enough to those 
who care to see them. How many more teenage 
suicides, stress-related illnesses, road rage 
incidents and examples of crime and anti-social 
behaviour will it take before we believe the 
opinion polls: that Britons are less happy now 
than they were thirty years ago?

I'm only scratching the surface here. Let's look 
briefly at another factor that seems to be 
regarded, unquestioningly I suspect, as a good 
thing for Ireland: the growth of tourism. 
Tourists spend money, thus they make the host 
more prosperous. Again, only up to a point. 
Tourism is an industry. It creates and thrives 
on its own agenda until it grows into a monster 
that devours the parent that created it. It 
takes over, so that the act of bringing people 
in to look at the existing attractions grows 
into the need to 'develop' the attractions, as 
well as creating new and incongruous ones, in 
order to encourage more tourism. You only have 
to look as far as the Mediterranean coastline to 
see how it works. Tourism, if allowed to go too 
far, is quite capable of killing the very magic 
that makes Ireland unique. Before it does so, 
of course, the industry will package a plastic 
facsimile of that magic to sell to the visitors 
and make more money. But the real thing will be 
gone.

I could go on and on, but I don't feel this 
newsletter is an appropriate forum for an extended 
argument. The intention here is simply to 
encourage a circumspect attitude to issues like 
modernisation, economic growth and tourism.

As an Englishman, it isn't for me to tell the 
Irish how to run their country. But I can see the 
dangers of the road they seem to be taking, and I 
would urge them to look beyond the surface 
impressions - and the posturings of politicians 
and big businessmen - before it's too late. I 
would hate to see the magic of Ireland become a 
thing of the past. And I suspect the Irish would 
too.

JJ Beazley

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A SURPRISING IRISH TRIP 	by Carol Martin
=======================

As always I enjoy reading my Irish newsletter and 
I thought I would share a recent experience with 
you.

I had the opportunity to return to Ireland for a 
week in April this year and my sister came along 
with me. Our tour group consisted of 42 people, 
but I only knew 13 of them from last year's trip. 
The rest of the group I had never met. My sister 
and I were so excited about this trip because 
this was the first time that she and I had ever 
gone away together without parents, husbands or 
children along with us — this was going to be a 
great opportunity for 'sister' time.

When we arrived at the airport, we met a couple 
who were going on our tour. I had met the girl 
last year and she introduced her husband to us. 
We were happy to talk with them since I liked 
her very much from last year. Slowly some of the 
rest of our group arrived and we introduced 
ourselves and finally got on our way to Ireland. 
When we all arrived at Dublin Airport and 
gathered together with our driver, my sister and 
I had the opportunity to study our fellow 
travelers. It was nice to say hello again to the 
people I had met last year. I didn't say anything 
to my sister, but I noticed two of the women in 
our group seemed a little 'out of it' and my 
impression was that we probably wouldn't have 
anything in common with these two. My sister felt 
the same way, but did not communicate that to 
me — we each kept our thoughts to ourselves. 

That first day we had some free time in Dublin 
and then drove to our hotel in Killiney, south 
of the city. The Fitzpatrick Castle Hotel is a 
lovely place and the staff treated us like 
royalty. We took a walk up Killiney Hill to see 
the breathtaking views of the Dublin Mountains 
and the coast which reminded me of photos of the 
Bay of Naples in Italy. We walked into the 
little village of Dalkey and then returned to 
our hotel for a wonderful dinner and a very 
welcome night's sleep. Being part of a group of 
mostly strangers is very interesting because 
you get to sit with different people at your 
meals and get to know them and find out about 
their lives. We were having a great time.

We traveled from Killiney to Leitrim and took a 
cruise on Lower Lough Erne and visited Belleek 
Pottery and then arrived at our hotel on Donegal 
Bay. After dinner we gathered in our hotel lounge 
and members of our group got up and sang and we 
had a wonderful time. It was after most of our 
group had gone to bed, we got to actually have a 
conversation with the two women my sister and I 
had observed the day before and had thought we 
would never have any common interests. How wrong 
we were! We had such a great time with them and 
laughed ourselves silly. One of the women can 
talk for hours and she starts a story and then 
digresses and you have to reel her back in to the 
original story. Her sister-in-law just sits there 
and shakes her head with that look of 'here we go 
again' on her face. It made me laugh just to look 
at her face. Every night was a repeat after that. 
The rest of the group would head up to bed and six 
of us would stay up talking and laughing until 
the wee hours of the morning. Some of the others 
in the group began calling us 'the dirty six' and 
we thought that was great.

We visited many interesting places including the 
Foynes Flying Boat Museum which was not something 
I was looking forward to when I read it on our 
itinerary. I was wrong about that also. It turned 
out to be fascinating and very enjoyable. We 
visited many great places during the rest of the 
trip and stayed at wonderful hotels, but in the 
end the best part of the trip for my sister and I 
was meeting these two women who we now consider 
friends. They live in the same state as we do and 
they have come to my house for the day and as we 
talked, we found so many similarities in our 
lives. In fact while we looked at photos of our 
grandchildren, we couldn't believe how much two 
of my sister's grandsons looked like two of the 
other woman's grandsons. We are e-mailing 
constantly and planning to get together very 
soon. We are also hoping to visit Dublin together 
in February for a trip to visit the places 
important to Irish history, particularly the 
1916 Rebellion. 

I guess the old saying 'don't judge a book by its 
cover' is very true. 

Carol Martin
Manalapan, NJ

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MERMAID IN A BOWL OF TEARS     by Cindy Brandner 
==========================

An excerpt from the novel 
'Mermaid in a Bowl of Tears' 

...Another flash and he saw that her eyes were 
closed and knew she was fathoms deep, gone into 
that far kingdom where valleys ran a hundred 
miles wide and mountains would seemingly reach 
the moon if they were not rooted to the ocean 
floor. Born to the sea, she was, a mermaid in a 
bowl of tears. And he with his feet planted 
firmly in the earth.

The Atlantic that his wife loved so well had 
been called 'the bowl of tears' by the Irish 
poet John Boyle O'Reilly, and for good reason. 
Two m'illion Irish, in a desperate bid to outrace 
death, had taken to the sea upon vessels so 
decrepit and un-seaworthy that they were known 
as 'Coffin Ships'. Ships with rotten rigging, 
un-caulked timbers, leaking hulls. Ships without 
provision, nor berths, nor adequate water. Ships 
that would become fetid prisons of starvation, 
thirst and black fever. Still, the Irish, often 
unaware of the perils of ocean travel, preferred 
to take their chances upon the cold, unforgiving 
waters of the North Atlantic rather than face 
certain death in the land they'd been born to.

Casey saw them clear in his mind at times - the 
poor, the destitute, those abandoned by God and 
Man, forced to flee the only security they'd 
known in a life that had been desperate at best. 
And he saw those too weak in spirit or flesh, too 
poor or enfeebled by their labors to take flight 
from a doomed land.

The scent of them lay thick along the shore. So 
many had come and so many had not survived, but 
they'd left their legacy in strong backs and 
stubborn minds. He could smell them everywhere, 
the smell of dispossession and displacement, of 
longing and fear. He knew the smell well, it was 
on his own skin, the fragrance of a man without 
a country. His own ancestors had come here once, 
and then returned to Ireland. The father-in-law 
he'd never known had come and stayed.

He wondered what Pamela's father had thought of 
this, this raw country that could break a man 
if he wasn't born knowing how to bend. She'd 
told him the basics - how her father had landed 
at Ellis Island, a thirteen year old orphan from 
the rough end of Limerick, without a dime to his 
name and only the clothes he carried on his back. 
Forty years later he'd been one of the wealthiest 
Irish Americans in the United States. She might 
have been telling the story about anyone, though, 
and that told him far more than her words ever 
could. He'd never pushed her about her past, had 
always backed off when she shied away from his 
questions, knowing too well there were some things 
that could not be said, things for which there 
weren't words in any language. But it bothered 
him to realize that somewhere inside her was a 
core of loneliness that he could not penetrate, 
a loss that was shrouded but not healed. Bothered 
him that the sea somehow gave her a relief that 
he could not. His wife, and yet there was always 
some element of her that eluded him.

It wasn't that he didn't understand what it was 
to have such a core. He'd his own, after all, like 
a lead-lined box harnessing the pain of his years 
in prison, a wee box to be certain but locked 
tight against the interference of outside eyes.

Another flash of light and movement caught his 
eye, snapping him abruptly from his reverie. 
Beyond Pamela, something had moved in the dark. 
Casey blinked, moving forward instinctively, 
panic lighting his nerve endings and burning 
quickly in toward his core. Who the hell would 
be out on a night such as this one? He cursed the
sand as it slogged his steps, seeming to enlarge 
the distance between he and Pamela. The rain was 
coming harder now, blurring his vision, making 
him doubt the amorphous shape that he could have 
sworn had emerged from the dark only seconds 
before.

~~~

(C) Cindy Brandner
author 'Exit Unicorns' and 
'Mermaid in a Bowl of Tears'.

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HEAR HER WHISPER ­ ANSWER HER CALL
================================== 
by NJ Bryan

She is called Ireland. What is it that she does 
to your heart, your soul?
If there be but one drop of Irish blood left 
running through your veins, you will feel it the 
moment your feet touch her soil. Though the 
bloodlines may have thinned over generations, the 
root runs deep.
Until it has been experienced no words in any 
language can adequately explain.
Like one hundred thousand watts of electricity, 
emotions flow to the depths of your very being. 
In a flash you feel her joys and her sorrows. 
As the journey begins, you feel like a child 
whose mother has taken its hand to lead the way. 
To welcome you home though time and circumstances 
have kept you away in another place.
The songs you have heard and the stories you have 
read, will shine in a new light as you now realize 
what they truly mean.
Hillsides greener than any you will ever see and 
lakes that are crystal clear and blue. Castles 
still standing guard in what is only part of their 
past grandeur. See the memorials to those who lost 
their lives in The Great Hunger and those who gave 
their lives willingly in the name of equality and 
freedom for generations. You will find them not 
only in the cities but along the roadsides.
The welcome continues as you meet her children. 
Their smile is from the heart, they look you in 
the eye and shake you by the hand when first you 
meet.  Be it Cork, Kerry, Clare, Dublin, it 
matters not which county - you are greeted like 
an old friend. 
So if, like me you have heard her softly calling 
you through the years and over the miles? Answer 
the call, run to her embrace. It is one you won't 
want to leave and if you must you will be planning 
your return before the plane's wheels lift off 
her soil.  

NJ Bryan
September 2006 (C)

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GAELIC PHRASES OF THE MONTH
===========================

PHRASE:		Ta me i gcruachais. 
PRONOUNCED:	tah may ih grew-kuss
MEANING:	I need your help

PHRASE:		Ta me ar strae/gortaithe/tinneas
PRONOUNCED:	tah may air stray / gore-teh-hah / tinn-iss
MEANING:	I am lost/injured/sick

PHRASE:		Ba mhaith liom an dochtuir
PRONOUNCED:	buh wot lum on dock-thure
MEANING:	I need a doctor

View the archive of phrases here:

https://www.ireland-information.com/irishphrases.htm

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SHAMROCK SITE OF THE MONTH:CELTICATTIC.COM

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Phone orders 360-765-0186

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JULY COMPETITION RESULT
=======================

The winner was: maripatmcnulty@mac.com
who will receive the following: 

A Single Family Crest Print (decorative) 
(US$19.99 value)

Send us an email to claim your print, and well 
done! Remember that all subscribers to this 
newsletter are automatically entered into the 
competition every time. 

=================================================

I hope that you have enjoyed this issue.

Until next month,

Michael Green,
Editor,
The Information about Ireland Site.


https://www.ireland-information.com

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