Christian Gehrke of I Spy ... blog is an American living in rural Ireland.
As such, he has a unique perspective on how things are in the land of Éire that Irish people may not see:
1. Farmers rule the road and they know it. Whether it be with a very slow tractor or heard of sheep and cattle, they do what they like, when they like and don’t care if you need to get to work.
2. Worrying sheep is against the law. I really don’t know what worrying a sheep consists of but they take it seriously in these parts. Don’t blow your horn or you might worry something or someone.
6. Say no to Craic. Yes we have Crack here too but it means gossip and everyone wants to know what the “criac” is. If you do ANYTHING out of the ordinary everyone will know about it. Gossip is king in these parts.
8. Bureaucracy is king. The Irish love their forms and boy do they use them. To do anything you must fill out at least 10 forms and jump through a minimum of 3 hoops.
To give you an example. We recycle and it means dropping off our recycling ourselves. This I can live with but before we can go to the drop off point we must first buy stamps. The number of stamps depends on how much you have to recycle, usually one stamp per “car” load. These stamps must be bought at a local gas station or shop not the recycling center. If one shop has run out you must find one that still has some left. If you buy too many stamps you’ve wasted money and if you don’t buy enough you will be forced to go back and buy more before you can drop off your stuff. This is enough to put anyone off doing it all together.
It's amazing that they'll make recycling actually hard to do! http://www.theispysite.com/2007/12/11/i-spythe-downside-of-country-living-in-ireland/#more-1206
Other than that (and some other stupidly high prices) it is a really nice place to live, geographically speaking.
anyway, we were in the field a LOT and encountered a LOT of sheep. my name is rob and i SWEAR they didnt go "b-a-a-a-a" they went "r-o-o-o-b". we stayed on an estate that was hundereds of years old. one of the many ghost stories was about a baby that died in the lake and the locals claimed you could hear him crying at nite. one nite we were out at the lake and heard a baby crying. we freaked out til we realized it was only the sheep! sounded exactly like a crying baby!
if you ever have a chance, go to Ireland! it is wonderful!
That's it. I'm moving to Ireland. I already have a border collie and the spouse's cursed cats are like mini sheep...which I really have the urge to shave...