For most people, the idea of bowling as a spectator sport probably isn’t terribly exciting. Hanging out with friends of an evening at the bowling alley is one thing, but would you expect bowling to attract raucous crowds of thousands? No, you probably wouldn’t. But when you’re talking about Irish Road Bowling, that’s another matter entirely.
The sport of road bowling is most popular in County Armagh and County Cork in Ireland, although it was once also quite popular in Scotland and England. It has a long history, dating back to the 17th century according to some, so while it may look like semi-organized chaos it’s a popular sport in Ireland. The principle of the sport is similar to golf, in that a ball must be pushed along a course in the shortest number of moves, but the similarity ends there.
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The only post you’ll ever need: this is your one-stop Irish travel guide!
So, after a year and almost a thousand posts on Ireland, I thought I’d put the site to the test and demonstrate how to use Irelandlogue.com to plan your visit to Ireland. What follows is a step-by-step process using the logue to plan your trip:
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It’s been a year in the ‘logue, folks and, as I promised in an earlier post, I thought it would be a good idea to have a look over the year of blogging that’s been. What follows is a review some of the highlights of the past year’s logue-ing.
Over the last year I’ve spent every day blogging about interesting Irish things. Now that irelandlogue has been in existence for a year, it’s become an interesting Irish thing in itself. It’s a great thing: I’ve had the good fortune to have lived a fascinating year and to have had a blog to reflect it in.
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When you can’t actually be traveling to Ireland, the next best thing can be watching a travel TV program about Ireland. But instead of being stuck watching the show that’s on TV right now, why not take control and see only the shows you want to? With the new GlobeTrekkerChannel you can do just that. And what’s more, you can watch them on your own schedule, too.
There’s already more than 350 hours of top-notch travel programming available from the GlobeTrekkerChannel, with shows you know and love like Globe Trekker, Planet Food and …
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Yes, that’s what it’s called here: “The Bebo”. It may be only the third most popular social networking site with just 1.18% share of the market, but it’s by far the most popular social networking site in Ireland. Yes, for some reason Ireland just loves the Bebo. Radio programs, DJs - all of these have Bebo profiles, because they know that’s how to reach the Irish market.
Planning a trip to Ireland? It might not be a bad idea to get on “the Bebo” and make some friends.
To this end, wifey and I decided to create a Bebo band profile for Kerbside using the “Bebo bands” function of the site. Our Bebo band profile is at kerbside.bebo.com.
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The beer in Portland, Oregon might not be as famous as the beer in Ireland, but we like to think that it measures up in terms of quality. In fact, we’re so proud of it that we’re going to be serving Portland beer - lots of it - at the annual BootsnAll holiday party this December, and we think you should come!
WHAT: BootsnAll Holiday Party
WHEN: Saturday, December 1, 2007 from 7pm until 11pm
WHERE: Lucky Labrador Beer Hall, 1945 NW Quimby St., Portland OR 97209
Our annual holiday party is a chance for us to say “thank you” to the independent travelers …
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For the past year I have woken up every morning wondering what I would write about that day. When I leave the house, I carry a PDA, digital camera and mp3 recorder. When I walk into a shop, stop for lunch or even have a conversation I’m always thinking, “is this blog-able?”
So, a year later, it’s quite interesting to see which of those blog entries I’ve committed to the web have become most popular.
The most popular entry ever on Irelandlogue.com is . . .
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Since the first day I started Irelandlogue I have been blogging about Irish music sessions.
At least twice a week I attend a live Irish music session and post an mp3 and photo from the session. Regular readers of Irelandlogue.com will be familiar with The Shack, Sean’s Sunday session, Brideswell, Flannery’s, Shine’s, The Green Olive, The Bounty and even Bar Metro.
If you’re visiting the Irish midlands you should definitely stop in to The Brideswell Session for trad on a Thursday and stick the head into Flannery’s to hear some songs on a Friday. Between those, you should get a picture of what a real Irish session is like.
Most of the sessions I attend are traditional Irish music sessions, although most will allow bluegrass and popular music for the occasional song. The Shack is the exception, being an almost entirely modern music session.
For the unindoctrinated, here are some basic rules for attending an Irish music session:
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You probably know I’ve been running posts on Irish slang. You may remember back in May I published a substantial post about the use of the Irish language in modern Ireland. Heck, I even auditioned for the Irish Sesame Street as gaeilge, but I’ve actually made very little mention of the Irish language itself on this blog.
The truth is, you won’t NEED any Irish language during your visit to Ireland. But, it’s a cool thing to know a bit of Irish, so here’s my challenge for you, o visitor to the emerald isle: attempt to use all 10 of the little bits of Irish listed below in a single day.
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Begorrah! Top of the morning!
Yes, two phrases you may have heard on Darby O’Gill and the Little People but that you will never actually hear spoken in Ireland. Most people have heard the Irish speak, but there are a lot of little things about their slang and turns of phrase that are often misunderstood by visitors.
Irish slang is definitely the thing that tickled our ears the most when we first moved here and that frequently tends to confuse our stateside guests. Below is the forty-first in a series I’m publishing of some common Irish slang that used to confuse us when we first arrived.
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