Madam, – Recently my wife and I had the pleasure of spending two weeks touring around your wonderful country – it was our first trip. I should say that my wife and I are both of Irish descent (wife – Roscrea, husband - Dublin).
We saw a lot of things that we expected: castles, cathedrals, countryside beauty, intact ruins, pubs, museums, bed breakfasts and shops – we were not disappointed. We expected the people of Ireland to be somewhat friendly and polite, but we were overwhelmed by the friendliness and helpfulness of the people we encountered.
The shop keepers, pub servers, OPW workers were great. I would say of all our contacts, 80 per cent were excellent, 15 per cent were between good and very good, and 5 per cent were fair/poor. Considering we have no personal connection with these people, I would call this fantastic.
I had to laugh when I was there as the Minister of Tourism was having meetings with people in the tourism industry and what I heard was that there needed to be a list of guidelines to encourage people in the tourism industry to deliver excellent service. From my perspective, there is very little room for improvement.
So, to all those people who come into contact with the short-term strangers in your land known as tourists, thank you for making us feel so welcome, thank you for the great hospitality – it is the everyday people like you that made our visit so enjoyable and so memorable. We will be returning. – Yours, etc,