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Of course Kerry would be close to my heart and I visit lovely Dingle quite often so I definatley think that Ventry should be included in my reasons to love Ireland. It is a typical old rural Ireland Village – about 4 miles long with the church on one s …

I am absolutely loving the new Bord Failte Ireland Tourism Ad for 2011. I wish I could go there… oh wait – I live here! How lucky are we to live in such a fantastic country – financial & political woes aside – it costs us nothing to open our eyes to the natural beauty and potential that is all around us!

One thing I really missed when I was living in the US was good old fashioned soda bread. There was never a shortage of it in our house – every Saturday morning after the cleaning was done my mother would start the baking – soda bread, curney loaf and maybe queen and butterfly cakes if we were good! That smell in the house – of clean and baking is one of the most enduring memories of my childhood.

I know many of you will be saying this is something to hate about Ireland but it’s just a laughable fact of Irish life that has shaped who we are. I figured that I’d be better tackling it early in this series! At the moment there is a t-shirt, wind breaker, wool coat, flip flops and a pair of wellies in the boot of my car, most people I know are the same – the saying ‘better safe than sorry’ should have been invented by an Irishman trying to prepare for the weather! The guy in the picture above wasn’t affected by the changeable conditions in the Dingle Peninsula this weekend – one minute I was gasping at the beauty of Dunbeg Fort, the next running for cover to avoid being washed off the edge of Ireland! Click on the title to read on…

It has become a national pre-occupation to denounce Ireland and its many evils these days. This series of posts is about the things about Ireland that are great – a bit of positive thinking for these dark times! I will post photographs, stories, people, music and just about anything that inspires me from week to week. This first post is a picture of the Nuns beach, Ballybunnion, Co. Kerry taken in March 2010.