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History is still going on in Ireland, and is therefore best avoided by all who
know what's good for them.
Ignore this and you'll soon discover that Irish history consists
mainly of miseries and woes inflicted
upon
the
residents
by previous visitors.
Among the succession of invasions, massacres and famines,
the Irish
managed to enjoy
three
brief periods
of relative contentment and happiness known as Golden Ages.
Ireland's
earliest known residents were the Giant Elk and some larger-than-normal
reindeer.
When they
moved out, the
megalith builders
moved in. Overnight, or so it seemed at the time, the whole country was
transformed. Holes
were dug, paths were blocked,
heavyweight stone slabs were erected, and the
entire place was turned into one
great
big building site.
The Bronze Age folk were obsessive home improvers, constantly
shoving
up new
ancient
monuments,
many of which they clearly never got around to finishing.
Not so with
Newgrange,
however,
built
to
catch the brief rays of the sun,
which
shone for just a few minutes on just one day of
the year.
This is
still known
in Ireland as the Dawn of History.
Meanwhile, in the shelter of their
sturdy homes,
the Bronze Agers started to
fiddle around with
little bits and pieces of gold which they and their extended families had found
in some of the
streams
and rivers of the
Wicklow
mountains, to the south of the city of Dublin. How they managed
to get through
Dublin's
traffic
on their way there is still considered to be one of
the great
mysteries
of Irish prehistory.
They
fashioned
rings
and circlets, gorgets and bracelets, torcs, more torcs and even torcs about
torcs...
Business was good, dolmens
and
rock-carving
kits were selling well, and the bottom had yet
to fall out of the lower end of the cheap jewelry trade.
Indeed, this was truly
a Golden Age...
 
Ireland Today
Travel and increased mobility has meant that the Ireland of today is populated by a veritable mixture of types, unimaginable in former times.
O'Malleys have married O'Driscolls, McGrottys mated with McGurks, and Flanagans have gone off with the Shanahans. It's something of a rarity
nowadays to see a "proper" irishman, complete with red hair, short temper and traditional "shillelagh" (a blackthorn stick used while out
walking, and also useful for beating the living bejaysus out of one's neighbors if they happened to annoy one in any way...).
However, all is not lost, in a historical sense. The old ways are alive and well
beneath the slick veneer of modern living. Time (approximately two and a half hours behind Greenwich Mean Time, and an indeterminate amount
behind both Eastern Standard and Pacific Daylight Times...), still goes more slowly in Ireland than anywhere else on the planet. Life here
is, in the main, relaxed and leisurely by global standards, and ancient traditions are kept up in colorful country rituals, such as dancing
at Lughnasa, hunting the wren, and burning down half the place every now and again.
Friendly and open by nature, the Irish prefer conviviality and good cheer to sober
isolation.
On the Scottish islands, it has been noted, settlement takes place by what may be called the "public urinal system", whereby each newcomer
politely moves to a spot most distant and unviewable from everyone else (perhaps to avoid embarrassing and possibly unfavorable comparisons,
as in the aforementioned urinals...), and therefore cottages are scattered far and wide. On the Irish islands, by contrast, homesteads tend
to cluster together in friendly huddles of tight togetherness.
Talking at length in Ireland is a national pastime, whether or not one has had the opportunity
to visit the legendary Blarney Stone, which is said to convey the gift of eloquence on
those who kiss it. Expert talkers here take great delight in leading anyone who cares to listen down tortuous tracks of conversation involving many and
various subjects, and off into flights of pure fancy, quite often without a flight plan or estimated arrival time of any kind.
So that's Ireland for yeh,
but for all its Celtic idiosyncrasies and eccentricity, there's nowhere else in the world I'd rather live, and that's tellin' yeh the honest truth!
You can always depend on help from the locals while trying to find your way around
Ireland.
Touring the back roads of Ireland can be something of an adventure...(Only kidding, of course!)
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