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A Photo Journal of My Ireland Trip

by Bill Rini on July 2, 2006

in Travel

Unfortunately I didn’t get to take many pictures while traveling around outside of Dublin. I was mostly in the car looking out the window at the scenery and photos don’t take so well at 70mph.

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I just thought this was funny. They also had banners advertising it as an American circus. For all the bad press we get I guess the one thing the world can agree on is that we’re good at doing the circus.

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I don’t know how true it is but my personal tour guide told me that Gaelic is a mandatory subject in school but nobody actually speaks it with any sort of regularity. In other words, you learn how to speak it but you never actually use it. It’s like Latin I suppose. I just think it’s funny that all road signs and such are in both languages.

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Show me the way to Temple Bar and Grafton Street.

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Before I went to Ireland a lot of people told me the whole leprechauns thing was just a myth/story. I wasn’t so sure I was buying it though. I mean, just look at the signs.

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Then, just when I had almost given up hope of spotting a leprechaun, BOOYA! Yeah boy, I body-tackled me a leprechaun and stole his coffee mug of gold. Though the gold turned out to be Euros and things must be tough for leprechauns these days because I only netted about 4 Euro.

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Holy Crap! Hippes have taken over St. Stephens Green.

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And if there’s one thing I hate even more than hippies, it’s hippies with drums! Aaaagh!

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So, because Dublin is so far north, it stays light out until like 10:00 or 10:30pm. Check out the clock at 5:15 and notice the position of the sun. It’s nearly at noon high.

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Getting a groove-on at Temple Bar

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{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }

1 uk & Ireland poker blogger July 3, 2006 at 8:46 am

People do still speak Gaelic in Ireland – there are regions where gaelic is the first language of the people (called `an ghaeltacht’), and the irish language is still compuslory in schools in the Republic of Ireland.

Police there must speak a level of gaelic also (top tip: When an Irish policeman stops you for speeding – tell him in gaelic that you wish to disuss this in gaelic.. Chances are he is out of practice and will forget the whole incident :) )

[couldn't resist, I am originally Irish and speak a bit of Gaelic]

paul

2 Bill July 3, 2006 at 8:59 am

Nothing to be sorry about :-) You hear different things from different people and it’s good to hear another perspective. It just seemed strange to me.

3 Tim November 29, 2006 at 8:36 am

Irish: 30,000 native speakers, 100,000 use it dayly and 1,250,000 claim fluent ability.

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