About Ireland? Well it is a small island off the West coast of Europe, about 32,000 square miles with a population of about 4.5 million people. So there’s a clue, being so sparsely populated it never gets particularly crowded, so if you are looking for a quiet, relaxing holiday you have come to the right place! Weather wise we don’t get extremes, with an average temperature of about 5 degrees Celsius in the winter and 15 in the summer. Neither do we have any nasty bugs, mosquitoes or snakes, we have St Patrick to thank for that.

Our prevailing winds blow in from the West over the Atlantic ocean which means we get a fair amount of rain (what we call soft days in Ireland) but zero atmospheric pollution either.

Which has given rise to Ireland's landscapes often being referred to as 40 shades of green....
We are very proud of our little green island, which is struggling a little bit with the Euro (our currency) along with our European partners and indeed the rest of the world. But we have a long history (predating the Egyptians) of resilience and optimism. We prefer to see our glass of Guinness as half full rather than half empty.

We are easy going, amenable and relatively laid back and while standards of food and accommodation are very much improved we are still not really any good on timekeeping (we are on GMT by the way) and our public transport system outside of the main cities is fairly minimal to say the least. But hiring a car is simple and cheap with good motorways linking the main cities of Dublin, Cork, Galway and Belfast which is Northern Ireland, which always confuses people.

Ireland is made up of 32 counties, 26 of which are in the Republic of Ireland (Irish) and 6 in Northern Ireland (British) it’s a long story (800 years and more) don’t ask just feel free to travel the length and breadth of Ireland as a whole and enjoy it all.

For more information visit www.irelands-hidden-gems.com