Ireland - friendliest place or a triump of myth over substance?
Lonely Planet seems increasingly to be considered the definitive voice in determining how desirable a country is as a travel destination. When they proclaim Ireland the world’s most friendly country , even given the facetious tone of the criterion applied (assessing the United States the comment is ”all they ask is that you leave the shoe bomb at home”), the opinion will be listened to. It is therefore worth considering briefly whether Ireland is in fact inordinately friendly, or whether this laurel has been bestowed on our island largely due to lazy cliché. I work on the presumption that this “honour” applies to the whole of Ireland, given that there is no specification to the contrary and the horrendously platitudinous summation reads “these days after the end of the 'Troubles', a cautious optimism reigns supreme, infecting the land once again with the feeling that anything's possible”. Presumably then, the compiler of this list did not start their holiday by getting th...