What's New

As this book goes to press, travelers in Ireland are talking most about the cost of visiting the country, as inflation in Ireland remains relatively high, the dollar remains weak, and prices for sights, restaurants, and pubs creep (or catapult) rapidly up. The cost of a main course in a quality restaurant now routinely exceeds €25 ($33), and a cup of coffee can set you back €4 ($5.20). Inexpensive restaurants are much harder to find than they were even 2 or 3 years ago. Moderately priced hotels keep closing, then reappearing as pricey boutique hotels, with polished wood floors, exotic orchids on the teak tables, and not a bargain in sight.

Across-the-board, hotel prices have skyrocketed. While writing this book I noticed that a number of hotels had doubled their charges over the previous year. In many cases, they did so without any evident justification -- no renovation or substantial changes within the hotel.

Wherever possible I have noted severe price swings, and recommended alternative hotels that are just as good, but with more reasonable prices.

The North is still considerably cheaper than the Irish Republic, but the exchange rate with the British pound has been brutal for the last few years, and that eats up most of the savings.

I've been exploring for more reasonably priced options this year, and have added as many as I could locate. But those traveling with any sort of financial restrictions will need to plan carefully and remain flexible in order to get the most out of their trip.

Getting There

For decades, flights to Ireland from North America were forced by international agreement to land at Shannon Airport, even when most of the passengers were really heading to Dublin. With the recent "Open Skies Agreement," those old rules were dropped. Some fear this means the end of plucky little Shannon Airport.

American Airlines and Air Canada have announced that they are likely to cut back or even end flights to Shannon. Those moves were worrying enough to have regional tourism authorities spend millions marketing the usefulness of the so-called "Shannon Gateway."

It's too early to write Shannon off. American and Air Canada never had many flights to Shannon, and in recent years the British budget airline, Ryanair, has made Shannon a hub, and it's also still heavily used by the Irish carrier Aer Lingus.

Most people traveling to the popular scenic west coast of Ireland find it more convenient to fly direct to Shannon. So it seems hard to believe the airport's future is in doubt. Time will tell.

Over in Dublin, construction is well underway on Dublin Airport's new Pier D, which is now expected to be completed in 2008, with another terminal to follow in 2009. The government has also fast-tracked approval for improvements to the rail and road infrastructure linking the airport to the city in an effort to alleviate traffic congestion around the airport.

By the time all the construction is finished, it is expected that the airport will see as many as 30 million passengers pass through its terminals each year.

In order for that to be viable, though, the government has acknowledged that certain problems will have to be addressed, including the congestion on the M50 -- the key route to and from the airport, and really the de facto gateway to Ireland. Plans are also underway to connect the airport to the city center by rail, which could make a tremendous difference for those who come to Ireland solely to visit Dublin.

What this is likely to mean throughout 2008, though, is traffic jams. The continuation of ongoing road construction on the M50 will mean slow-moving traffic much of the time. Expect (and allow time for) a slow drive on the relatively short distance.

Getting Around

All of the speed limit signs in the Republic of Ireland are now fully metric. Previously some gave mileage as well as metric distances, but now all have gone the European route.

This can cause confusion if you've been driving in the north of Ireland, which, as part of the U.K., still keeps its speed limit and distance signs in miles. Don't get confused or you could find yourself hurtling along at 90 mph when the speed limit is in kilometers per hour. That's about 55 mph to you or me.

Speaking Gaelic

The growing acceptance of Gaelic in Ireland has led to increasing use of the language for road and street signs. Traditionally the Gaelic words have been paired with English on bilingual signs, but the times they are a changin'.

Road signs in Gaelic-speaking areas of Ireland (known as Gaeltacht regions) have now been changed from bilingual English-Gaelic to Gaelic only. This is primarily in the north and western parts of the country, in places such as the Dingle Peninsula in Kerry, coastal sections of Galway, and Donegal.

This creates a number of problems for visitors. The most worrying is the issue of safety -- in some areas of Galway, even warning signs and safety notices are in Gaelic only. This shortsighted approach means that non-Gaelic speakers are left to guess what danger lies ahead for them, as some signs don't even have symbols to give you a clue to what the words mean.

A second problem is that official Irish road maps have not changed as quickly as road signs, so even now you can purchase maps in Irish tourism offices that do not have the Gaelic town names on them. Since the Gaelic names bear no resemblance to the English versions, this can leave you with no idea where you are. This has happened to me on several occasions in more far-flung areas of the country, and I have to admit that it is disorienting.

The Irish government is moving to address the imbalance between road signs and maps, and some updated maps are available, but you'll need to check before you buy a map that it has Gaelic names as well as English, as many do not.

In this issue we've added the Gaelic names in parentheses alongside the English names in those Gaeltacht regions where the English names are increasingly a thing of the past.

Dublin

Have you forgotten something? The Dublin Tourist Office has a fantastic online service for procrastinators and last-minute travelers. Log on to www.visitdublin.com for a list of Dublin hotels with vacancies. Best of all, these last-minute rooms are often priced at a deep discount.

County Clare

The Cliffs of More? -- In 2007, the breathtaking Cliffs of Moher in County Clare followed the lead of many other major Irish sights and underwent a refurbishment. Well, not to the cliffs themselves (thank goodness), but the visitor center that you must go through in order to reach the cliffs. It's been expanded into a state-of-the-art development, complete with a video production, multifaceted exhibits, souvenir shops, cafes, and so forth, all of which means that, inevitably, the cost to see the cliffs has more than doubled. It now costs €8 ($10) just to park your car in the parking lot. Once you're inside the fence, there are more charges if you're so enthusiastic as to actually want to see some of the displays on offer in the visitor center. In July 2007, the cliffs were offering a "summer family special" rate of €50 ($65) for a family of four to park, see the cliffs, visit the visitor center, and have lunch.

This is one of the most egregious examples of tourist-related price inflation I've seen in Ireland this year -- and the competition is fierce. Remember, these are cliffs: Created by nature, carved by erosion. Until a few years ago, access was free.

Travelers regularly tell me that they park illegally, go after-hours, and in short, find inventive ways to access the cliffs without paying fees that they increasingly see as excessive.

This sort of borderline profiteering is becoming endemic in the Irish tourism industry; sometimes it seems amazing that they haven't yet managed to kill the goose that lays the golden tourism egg.

Northern Ireland

Belfast Arrives -- At long last, Belfast has a truly grand hotel -- the Merchant Hotel has opened to universal acclaim. This five-star hotel in the heart of the city's historic Cathedral Quarter is a potent symbol of the north's rebound -- a luxurious (but not overpriced) hotel equipped with the latest business technology.

In this former bank converted into a hotel with exquisite attention to detail, the Great Room restaurant is the most beautiful space in the building. Its soaring ceilings, gilded plasterwork frieze, Corinthian columns, and marble floors make a breakfast of eggs and bacon seem entirely wrong, and champagne and caviar seem so right.

Rooms will horrify minimalists, with silk wallpaper, designer carpets in vivid colors, and king-size beds draped in the softest, thickest blankets. Well-chosen antiques round up the look, creating a warm, comfortable feeling.

Belfast, it seems, has arrived.

You Say "An Daingean," I Say "Dingle"

A controversial move by the Irish government to force County Kerry's popular Dingle Peninsula to change its name to An Daingean was still unresolved as this book went to press. Signs bearing the new name went up in 2006, but residents of the region were resisting the move and threatening to take the entire case to court. The area is an official Irish-language region, so the government appears to have the legal right to force the name change. However, the residents also have the right to leave the Gaeltacht and keep the peninsula's name as it has been for centuries now. It's possible that when you arrive, road signs may or may not have been changed back from An Daingean to Dingle, so be prepared for either.