After Caroline’s wedding, we hung on for another day in Killarney to get a break from our four darlings. I think maybe I had passed through once before but could remember nothing of the place so I had no expectations. OK, I did assume we would find a certain level of paddywhackery but jesus, it turned out to be Brigadoon transplanted.
I have never ever seen so many shops selling such tat in all my life. They make the shops in the streets around Notre Dame look like high quality purveryors of objets d’art. I could have dressed as a full leprechaun in any of about thirty shops.
I had thought that the older generation of Irish-American immigrants had started dying out or at least were getting too old to travel. So I assumed the demand for this sort of “darby o’gill and the little people” “top o da mornin to ya” shite had died off. I was obviously wrong. These shops wouldn’t be selling this rubbish unless someone was buying it.
There are signs of hope. The Murphy’s Coffee and Ice Cream shop is a branch of the one in Dingle (sorry I of course meant An Dingle Dangle Dongle Ui Cuis) and serves fab stuff. And there is, em, well, em, oh yeah, the factory outlet mall and the, oh ye know, the, eh, gimme a sec, the, of course, the Supermacs in the garage.
I did realise there that there is one opportunity being missed by all the pub chains operating on the continent. One of them needs to open an Irish Pub - in Ireland!
I have to sign off now and go polish my pot o gold at the end of the rainbow.
[tags]killarney, ireland, tourism, paddywhackery, leprechauns[/tags]
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