Travel Holidays in Southern Ireland THE nearest country that I
know where you can most quickly and easily feel abroad is Ireland, It is, true that France is actually nearer, but then for three hours from the Channel Port the train will be filled with English ; in- Ireland you will get that foreign feeling three minutes from the landing stage.
The people certainly speak our language, which makes for ease_ of foreign travel. But they speak- all sorts of queerly un-English meanings, and even the signs over the shops read as oddly foreign. Then pillar- boxes are green, coins burgeon out into delightful legends of bulls and rabbits and hens, and every notice is in Gaelic, though with the English conveniently enough underneath. You pay a halfpenny extra for your London paper and get thg sensation of reading the Petit Porisien in the Strand: -EVen the trains somehow feel foreign and diffecent. " -They are not fast trains by English express standards, but they are very com- fortable and -friendly trains. Most of the important ones carry either a restaurant-ear or a one-class Pullman with a quite small extra fee. Or another way of seeing the country is from the excellent 'buses which run everywhere. Most "of the roads are about as good as all but the best of English main roads, and carry traffic far less. Modern Ireland makes an ideal country for the motorist, and the Liverpool boats in summer carry hundreds of cars.
The I.F.S. of today is of course an Irish Foreign State and so there are Customs to pass. But they are very easy Customs, at any rate for the tourist, and any trouble at all will be on his return—if he happens to be carrying sweepstake tickets. And again the country has emphasized its foreign status by changes of place-names ; and just as in modern Italy we find a gonteleoiae reverting to the Vibo Valentia of Ancient Rome, so in modern Ireland we have Queenstown becoming Cobh and Kingstown turning into Dun Laoghaire, with the English version as a sort of footnote for the benefit of the old-fashioned Saxon tourist.
In scenery and in sport, in antiquities, in motoring and tramping, the country offers a wide variety of Choice. It really is country, for outside Dublin and Cork there are no cities of the standard of English population, and Waterford and 'Limerick and Galway count more as convenient touring centres. Or there are places like Bray and Bundoran and Tramore, seaside resorts with a social atmosphere entirely different from their English counterparts. To the Englishman the Irish watering-place is as foreign. as Dinard or Knocke. Or outside the beaten track there are mountains and islands where next to nobody ever goes, and there are lakes and rivers with some of the finest fishing in Europe and with very few restrictions. The local hotel can usually arrange a temporary permit. And so far from Ireland being a Country Where It Always Rains, there is a whole stretch of South Coast practically unexplored by the ordinary tourist and with a sub-tropical climate.
With perhaps half a dozen exceptions there is in the Free State no such thing as an hotel de fuze: But there are many quite good and extremely clean small houses, and indeed the Irish townlet or even big village will generally offer its proper little hotel where its English opposite number could only provide a public house.
They charge, of course, their fair and decent prices, . - but they do not profiteer out of the tourist. The finest chance that modern Ireland ever had of profiteering was in her Congress of 1932, when they packed a million visitors into the half-million population of Dublin ; and then the restaurants raised their prices by just sixpence a meal, with printed apologies on the menu cards that the cost of extra service made it necessary. There is an official Touring Association which keeps a control of prices.
From London to Dublin the cheapest passage at all comfortable costs roughly £3 10s. for a monthly return, or every week-end there is a fare of about 10s. less allowing return within 16 days. That is by Liverpool, third rail and saloon on boat, with an extra 2s. 6d. each way for a cabin-berth. It is an eight-hour crossing, but the size of the harbours allows of quite large 4nd steady boats. Or Holyhead, of course, gives a far shorter sea-run of about three hours for a few shillings more of fare, and offers besides both a day and a night service.
For the South there is the Fishguard and Rosslare short sea-trip with fares from Paddington of- from £3 8s. 9d. for the 16-day ticket issued each week-end and with a few shillings more for the monthly ticket issued each week-day. ,Or so many times a week there are the packets from Fishguard direct to Waterford and to Cork. And then 'for those who really like the sea there are the ships to Dublin and Waterford and Cork and Limerick and even Galway ; they take just a few passengers and- feed-thein very well. But these are not trips de luxe, and the hardy adventurer must be prepared to do without any ship's orchestra. You can go that way from Glasgow or Bristol or Swansea or Southampton or London. And -file outing may take up to four days. .
It is quite a foreign country that takes four days' steaming to reach it. And Ireland is a Foreign Country. _
JOHN' GIBBONS. .
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