Talking about the pubs, the Irish seem rather fond of their drunks, regarding them affectionately as ‘characters’. As a Brit, I’ve been bought up to see them as idiots who can’t control themselves, who damage the community. Here, they add colour to it.

The Irish are slowly upgrading their railway system to bring it up to the very latest 1970s standards. A train might soon get to its destination before the equivalent bus (e.g. Dublin to Cork). Oh, how I miss the TGV! In fact, the lack of decent long distance transport is one reason why I want to move on. Sitting in an aircraft feels like unjust punishment compared to sitting in a TGV. Still, perhaps the talk of a new network of high speed railways in the UK, and the estimated cost of a bridge from Galloway to Belfast at £3.5bn, might just mean the TGV comes here before the next century.