Ireland is World's Friendliest Country - say Lonely Planet.

[Ard-Taoiseach]

O.K. I did some research due to a little sceptism.
The co authors of the Lonely Planet books are Tony and Maureen Wheeler.
Maureen is Irish.

Do you have a link for that?

[CJH]

[quote=Ard-Taoiseach]

Find Mayo, Galway, Clare and older Derry and Donegal people very friendly. Sligo people a bit neargoing. Cork people least friendly, very hard to like them. Dubs somewhere in the middle..

When I was in Limerick a few years ago I found the locals very pleasant. However, I understand that some people have had different experiences...

As for guidebooks, CJH's tip of the week is to use Footprint guides - more information than either the LP or RG, and because less people buy them you're less likely to go to a hotel/restaurant that is full of other book-wielding tourists

But are they as easily obtained as LP and RG?[/quote:1ilz8xzw]

Not quite, though you can get them in the major book shops. Or else online, of course

[Odyessus]

Yes, tourists have often remarked to me how friendly Ireland is. I do my bit by always carrying around a couple of those free maps of Dublin in my pocket, so when a tourist asks me for directions I point out his or her destination on the map and present it to the tourist. They are always delighted with this gesture, which costs nobody anything, and makes all concerned feel good.

Well done, Odeyssus!!! You'd be one of those smiley people on Fáilte Ireland ads who keep the €6.5 billion industry strong?

No, I just like being pleasant to people; but as I get pleasure from it, Immanuel Kant would say there is no virtue in my actions. Ah well, you can't have everything.

[Ard-Taoiseach]

[quote=CJH]

Find Mayo, Galway, Clare and older Derry and Donegal people very friendly. Sligo people a bit neargoing. Cork people least friendly, very hard to like them. Dubs somewhere in the middle..

When I was in Limerick a few years ago I found the locals very pleasant. However, I understand that some people have had different experiences...

As for guidebooks, CJH's tip of the week is to use Footprint guides - more information than either the LP or RG, and because less people buy them you're less likely to go to a hotel/restaurant that is full of other book-wielding tourists

But are they as easily obtained as LP and RG?

Not quite, though you can get them in the major book shops. Or else online, of course[/quote:1dlq6dbk]

Yes, CJH. The Internet can get you everything. I found j-Cloths from the 60s on it the other day. It was on eBay.

[Ard-Taoiseach]

Yes, tourists have often remarked to me how friendly Ireland is. I do my bit by always carrying around a couple of those free maps of Dublin in my pocket, so when a tourist asks me for directions I point out his or her destination on the map and present it to the tourist. They are always delighted with this gesture, which costs nobody anything, and makes all concerned feel good.

Well done, Odeyssus!!! You'd be one of those smiley people on Fáilte Ireland ads who keep the €6.5 billion industry strong?

No, I just like being pleasant to people; but as I get pleasure from it, Immanuel Kant would say there is no virtue in my actions. Ah well, you can't have everything.

True, but you can have a laugh while you reach 1700.

[Tiernanator]

Shure, it would be a grand little country if you could roof it.

I have always though we should have a retractable roof over the country. You are so right.

[Pauli]

I am writing this too soon after going through "hell central" or Dublin Airport as it is sometimes known. So I am not in a good mood.

Try going through Stanstead or Heathrow as I do once per month (usually to Dublin) thats what the seventh circle of hell is all about...then you'll regard Dublin as a breeze.

It never ceases to amaze me how, when we try to big ourselves up, we compare ourselves to the Brits. I know it is what most people can easiest relate to but really it is a lazy way out of explaining why, in this case, Dublin Airport is so bad.
I take the point about Heathrow. I have not been in it for 8 years because even then it was bloody awful. But there are airports that are pleasant to go through and Dublin Airport would compare very unfavourably with them. Schipol (Amsterdam), Vantaa (Helsinki) and Zurich Airport are the airports we should in my opinion seek to emulate. We are so far away from this standard it's not funny and for that reason, I would never regard Dublin Airport as a breeze.

[madura]

They're not buying it at the Irish Times, fancy that. From the Irishman's Diary:

Lonely Planet's choice of Ireland as the world's friendliest country will come as a surprise to many of us who live here, writes Frank McNally
It seems to illustrate the truism that if you get a reputation for work, you can sleep all day. The fact is that, as befits a world-class economy, Ireland has outsourced that whole Céad Míle Fáilte thing, which was very labour-intensive. My guess is that the friendly locals encountered by the Lonely Planet Bluelist compilers were actually Polish.

[Riadach]

Shure, it would be a grand little country if you could roof it.

I have always though we should have a retractable roof over the country. You are so right.

So was Niall Toibín when he said it first.

[draiocht23]

Funny piece in the IT today about this in Frank McNally's Irishman's Diary

http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/opinio ... 66731.html