Ireland Travel

» Georgene A. Bramlage - Irish Gardens - Killruddery, Bray, Wicklow

Wow! Mike, Cathy, Colin and Karen...what an amazing number of articles from one of my favorite garden countries!
I'd like to draw your readers' attention to my series of five articles about "Killruddery Estate and Gardens" which best begin with "Killruddery Gardens". Links to the other four articles are found in this overview article.
Killruddery Gardens are neighbor to Powercourt which Colin mentions in his Wicklow Day Trip article. They are, however, comfortable, intimate and very enlightening for anyone with even a passing interest in Irish history and what this meant to garden history. I love these gardens and found it very hard to leave after a visit of several hours.
Georgene

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» Mike Gerrard - Irish Gardens - Killruddery, Bray, Wicklow

In response to Irish Gardens - Killruddery, Bray, Wicklow posted by Cercis:

Thanks, Georgene. I hope people do read the pieces. I've visited Powerscourt and loved it. Ireland has some fabulous gardens. Maybe you could do a short round-up article with links to all your Irish gardens pieces and post it in the travel section?

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» Georgene A. Bramlage - Irish Gardens - Killruddery, Bray, Wicklow

In response to Irish Gardens - Killruddery, Bray, Wicklow posted by mgerrard:

Sure Mike...Will put it on my to-do list.

Would be nice either this summer, or for next St. Pat's Day.

Georgene

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» iolas - Lonely Planet Irish Language and Culture

I am very disappointed and embarrassed by this booklet.
It is not, as its title suggests, a guide on Irish culture as the majority of what is referred to as culture is, in actual fact, mostly slang and (regional) urban social mores.

To add insult to injury, the language is a bungled furball of confusion. Irish is not the English language with an Irish cultural inflection! The Irish language is a swift and sweet tongue with much beauty - a facet just as swiftly set aside with its very brief references to greetings and a small, stop gap vocabulary.

Granted, English is the second official language of Ireland with the majority of its populace speaking it. However, if Lonely Planet wanted to write a book about this then they should have labelled it "English language and culture in Ireland" or something like that to indicate the true nature of its contents.

Apart from its grossly inaccurate leaning, the book is also very light on in all areas of the traditional LP format. For example, when one compares this to the (much heftier) French counterpart, one can easily see that Lonely Planet must've been in a slow news day when it coughed up this pathetic rubbish.

-- posted by iolas

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» Mike Gerrard - Lonely Planet Irish Language and Culture

In response to Lonely Planet Irish Language and Culture posted by iolas:

I think you're being very unfair on the book. It's only a pocket-sized book, and is 256 pages. You say it isn't really to do with culture, yet there are 22 pages on food and drink, 16 pages on sport, and 48 pages on what it calls 'Lifestyle and society', covering such subjects as politics, current affairs, education, technology, money, religion etc etc. Another 24 pages deal with entertainment - the pub, music, dancing, festivals and movies, theatre and TV.

By my reckoning, that's almost half the book given over to culture, and as the title is Language and Culture, to have the other half given over to language is reasonable. The chapter on Slang is only 20 pages out of 256.

In terms of the content, on the very first page of his introduction, the authors say 'the Irish are masters of the English language'. They make it quite clear over many pages that, as you say, Irish is not English with a cultural inflection. It is not a book about Gaelic, it is a book about Irish English (as opposed to English English). I think the book deals with it thoroughly, and it's unfair to criticise it for not being to the traditional LP format, when that isn't what the book is about.

I'm glad you made your points, as others might agree with you, but I certainly don't agree that it is 'pathetic rubbish'.

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