Wednesday, November 15, 2006
Northern Ireland: the new Beirut?
After Ireland got a rough ride in the Rough Guide, the Lonely Planet is signing the praises of Belfast! And there’s Dennis Murray’s upbeat report (video) too. You can try the BBC library pictures. But we recommend our own Northern Ireland Flickr Group, or the excellent Landscape Group.
Mick Fealty @ 04:47 PM
Mick, for the record, you’re repeating a myth circulated by the 57 varieties of Ireland’s regional press. My two articles in the Tribune relating to 50 things to both love and hate about Ireland were entirely separate from the actual contact of the current edition of The Rough Guide to Ireland.
Said book continues to eulogise Ireland’s better points and provide accurate comment on some of its worst.
Posted by on Nov 15, 2006 @ 06:22 PMWhoops, and did you mean ‘singing the praises’?
Posted by on Nov 15, 2006 @ 06:24 PMAnd a nice recent mentionin the Hungarian business weekly HVG...comparing Belfast to Budapest.
Posted by on Nov 15, 2006 @ 06:33 PMPunch drunk Geoff. :-) Would “rough ride from Rough Guide author Geoff Wallis” cover it more accurately?
Posted by on Nov 15, 2006 @ 07:06 PMNo, absolutely not! Norn Iron was barely touched upon in my two articles, apart from good recommendations.
I’d rather something along the lines of ‘Rough Guides co-author Geoff Wallis had plenty to say about the rough and smooth of visiting Ireland’ but the current edition of The Rough Guide to Ireland continues to highlight both the best and worst that visitors to the Six Counties/NI will encounter.
Posted by on Nov 15, 2006 @ 07:24 PMBelfast and Beriut ?
Beruit was rubble then was quite nice and healthy and is now rubble again.Lets hope Belfast doesn’t follow suit.
Posted by on Nov 15, 2006 @ 07:28 PMThey’re both pretty down to earth cities with a good nightlife vibe.
I think Beirut has it on the cuisine though, although both cities seem to have pretty cool bars (I’ve only been to Belfast once).
The weather is no comparison - you can swim in the sea off Beirut in November.For my money I found the shankill and the falls a bit more scary than some of the muslim areas of Beirut and the Bekaa valley I visited. I may have felt different if I was a Lebanese Christian I guess.
Posted by on Nov 16, 2006 @ 09:39 AM“Other destinations included with Northern Ireland in the ‘must-see’ list include Antarctica, Turkmenistan and Gabon.”
From the Irish Times.
Posted by on Nov 16, 2006 @ 04:24 PM
