Forest Eireann's tour de force
Friday, October 14, 2011 at 10:31 Currently in Waterford, the oldest city in Ireland.
Arrived yesterday via the Fishguard-Rosslare ferry. The last time I took this route passengers were left feeling distinctly queasy. On a bad day it can be very choppy. Thankfully the sun was shining and yesterday's conditions were described as "moderate".
We arrived in Rosslare at 6.00pm. I then drove to Waterford to meet my colleague John Mallon, spokesman for Forest Eireann.
On Wednesday John began a two-week tour that will take him from his home town of Cork to Dublin via Waterford, Kilkenny, Tralee (Co Kerry), Limerick, Galway, Ballyhaunis (Co Mayo) and Letterkenny (Co Donegal).
The aim is to raise Forest Eireann's profile by promoting our 'Smokers' Manifesto' which calls for greater tolerance towards adults who choose to smoke a legal product.
Yesterday the Cork Independent ran an article headlined Voice of the smoker not being heard, claims Forest Eireann. That in turn has led to a national TV station requesting an interview with John when the tour concludes in Dublin on October 26.
To date we have also arranged interviews with five local radio stations with more to come.
As I write John has just left for Kilkenny where he is being interviewed by KCLR96FM. I will join him later and we will spend the rest of the day in the town's pubs and bars, "listening" to publicans and their customers.
Based on the first two days John will have enough stories to fill a small book. I'll keep you posted. Keep an eye too on the Forest Eireann blog where John will update readers on his progress.
See also: Smokers' champion takes to the road
Reader Comments (3)
My sister has just returned from a holiday in Ireland. She’s been there several times before, some years ago (with an Irish then-boyfriend) and she’s always loved it and claimed it to be one of her favourite places in the world. Not any more. As she said: “I guess I had a rosy view of Ireland because I remembered how it used to be. I was looking forward to the hearty Irish food, cosy old pubs, excellent Guinness and – most importantly – the lovely, warm, friendly hospitality of the Irish people that I remembered from my previous visits.”
What she says she found was: “A pretty miserable bunch of po-faced, unfriendly and unhelpful people, food in most places that was simply inedible, closed and boarded up pubs all over the place, and towns which you didn’t like to walk about in late at night” (even with her husband, who stands at 6’4” tall). The one thing in its favour, according to her was: “Well, at least when you found a pub that was still open, the Guinness was still good, even if the pub was something of a morgue.”
The ex-boyfriend (with whom she is still friends) says that Ireland has been getting progressively more and more like this since – yep, you guessed it – the smoking ban was implemented there, and it’s one of the reasons why, a few years ago, he left for good. Whatever happened to “the Craíc??!” Oh, and just for the record, both my sister and her husband (and the ex-boyfriend) are never-smokers.
So, best of luck, Simon. I hope your experience of Ireland proves better than hers …
But all of that does not matter, Misty. What is important is the amount of TV advertising. Whoever is important in the 'tourist department' of the Irish Gov is judged by the amount of money that he spends on adverts! The more he spends, the better his standing. By the time that the bills hit, he will be long gone. And, of course, the politicians do not want to admit mistakes.
The vast majority of the people of this country are quite sensible. Unfortunately, they have been brainwashed. Most politicians are intelligent people, but they dare notdefend the enjoyment of tobacco. They dare not because it is commonly accepted that the enjoyment of tobacco is dangerous. Thus, they tell the People that the enjoyment of tobacco is a killer. But there is a serious difficulty which has not been investigated, and that is that all the epidemiological studies rely upon the erroneous idea that all humans are identical. That is, some people might get lung cancer from smoking, but most people do not. It is really odd that the fact that most smokers do not get lung cancer is not seen as unimportant.
Enough for tonight.
When I went to Ireland I was surprised with the biggest and old buildings such us 4rx and some others