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Most of us have dreamed at one time or another of rubbing elbows with the rich and famous. It’s one of those things that is unattainable for all but the very (privileged) few, right? Well, yes and no - if, for instance, you want to brag to all your friends that you’ve been a guest in a home owned by the late Merv Griffin, that’s as easy as renting a room at St. Clerans Manor House in Craughwell, County Galway.
See, when you’re rich and famous you get to do things like buy castles and historic homes in far-off places, restore them to their former glory, and then either live in them or turn them into five-star hotels. In Merv Griffin’s case, he said that buying St. Clerans Manor House was a “long cherished dream” - but he didn’t keep this treasure to himself. Instead, after St. Clerans was restored Griffin opened it up to guests as a luxurious hotel.
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Booking a vacation rental through a website takes a certain leap of faith - you’ve never seen the property, except in photographs, and you’re relying on someone else’s description of it to decide whether you want to call it “home” for a little while. And to make things even more confusing, if you just do an online search for “vacation rentals in Ireland” you’ll end up with pages of results and no indication of which websites are better than others.
To help you sort through the chaos, I’ve compiled a short list here of some of the vacation rental websites that I happen to think are useful. They don’t all have the same number of properties offered, but they do each have their benefits. What I’d suggest is that you check each one out for yourself to see which ones you prefer. Then, when you’re ready to book a vacation rental in Ireland you won’t have to hunt through all the hundreds of search results to find a website you like to use - you can go straight to the ones you’ve already tested and found helpful.
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Clonmel may not be on most peoples’ list of places to visit when they’re planning a trip to Ireland, but sometimes a good festival is enough to make you change your plans. Celebrating with a local community - or even just watching them celebrate - makes a vacation unique and interesting, and helps you get to know a place a little better. So, why not join in the fun of the Clonmel Junction Festival?
First held in 2001, the Clonmel Junction Festival incorporates art, music, theatre and dance in both traditional and more avant-garde settings. The festival takes over the town of Clonmel for its run every July (usually eight-nine days), with performances in the streets as well as performance venues, so it’s impossible to be in Clonmel during the festival and not get into the spirit of things.
Each year the Clonmel festival has a theme - in 2007 it was “Travel and Transport,” and that was worked into every facet of the festival. There’s an effort each year to engage younger audiences, and in 2007 kids were encouraged to think about transportation in different ways. Art installations around town featured the “Travel and Transport” theme as well, although most of the theatre, dance and music performances were not tied to the theme.
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When you’re hunting for a hotel in Ireland, you generally have two ways you can go about it. You can either concentrate solely on things like location and cost, taking whatever results come up and choosing from whatever cheap hotels are available, or you can look for specific properties because you’ve heard about them or they’ve been recommended to you. Either way, you’ve got a bit of online search work ahead of you. We’ve tried to make the process a little simpler (no matter which process you’re using) with our new Ireland …
If you need an excuse to head to Kilkenny in June, the Cat Laughs Comedy Festival is a great one - in addition to the usual sights of Kilkenny, this festival gives you an excuse to laugh yourself silly.
Kilkenny’s Cat Laughs festival has been going since 1995, and has featured lots of famous international comedians over the years - even the likes of Bill Murray and The Daily Show’s Lewis Black have appeared on the Cat Laughs stage in the past. Generally, it’s a great festival for British and Irish comedians to do their stand-up routines.
In addition to the stand-up comedy component, the Cat Laughs Comedy Festival also includes a comedy film element called “Kitty Flicks,” as well as a soccer game that’s held each year where the Irish comedians take on comedians from the rest of the world. This sporting event is just as much comedy as it is soccer. Even before the match in 2007, there was a preview of the match by the entertaining announcer, Barry Murphy, which you can see on video.
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If you’re planning a trip to Ireland and you even mention that you’re going anywhere near Waterford, some people will probably start asking you to “pick up a little something” for them. And if you’re not a connoisseur of high-quality glass, you might not understand their eagerness. That is, until you show up in Waterford and find that every other souvenir is made of crystal. Waterford Crystal is famous the world over, so visiting the factory just outside the Waterford city center and taking the factory tour can be a really interesting experience - especially if you’re into crystal.
The Waterford Crystal company was founded in the late 1700s, and today employs roughly 1,000 people. The factory in Waterford is where all the crystal is made, and there is a visitor center as well as the requisite gift shop. But rather than shuttling visitors through displays and diagrams showing how the crystal is created, the factory tour actually gives you a chance to see real artisans at work. In some cases, you can even chat with them and ask questions about their craft as well.
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