Interesting place, Ireland, but kind of strange.

I recall seeing one sign that read In the past 5 years, 116 people have been killed on this stretch of road", and thinking "Well, why don't you fix up the friggin' road, then, instead of putting up a sign?"

They also tend to throw down pea gravel on top of hot tar on roads, even on curves in the roads. My motorcycle has ABS and a traction control system, the instrument panel looked like Las Vegas at night with the warning lights for activation of these systems frequently flashing on and off.

The highways department doesn't spend much time trimming the vegetation at the side of the roadways... hedges often encroach onto the road, making it very narrow. Maybe that's to bounce the motorcycles back onto the road after they hit the pea gravel in the corners.

People in the northeast corner of the island appear to be very patriotic, everyone has a flag of some kind hanging off the front of their building. But the flags are all different. Maybe they just like bright colours.

I got lost in a big city in the north, and stopped into a pub on the main street (Shankhill Road) to ask for directions. Someone asked me "What foot do you kick with?" I told them that the Honda PanEuropean I was riding had electric start, and no kickstarter, and they all laughed. I guess they don't have many modern motorcycles there... I didn't see very many. Lots of pretty tall fences, though.

Nice island, but like I said, kind of strange.

Michael