The British have Dover, Ireland has the cliffs of Moher, an hour’s bus ride from Galway. The area is very sparsely populated, with a few small villages and remote farms, and small castles that dot the coast. Lots of sheep though, it is said that there are three times as many sheep as people in Ireland.
At the time of British occupation, Ireland had a population of over 8 million. People were very poor because of British exploitation, and subsisted on potatoes – until the potato blight hit and the population went down to two million in six years due to starvation and emigration. Today it’s 5.5 million and the great famine is still very much present in people’s minds. This and many other historical events we learned from our bus driver, who talked nonstop for three hours. That guy must have a Blarney’s stone at home.
