It would take the practised eye of a local or frequent visitor to readily identify anything uniquely Irish when driving around the country. Green fields within stone walls, quaint villages, old stone ruins, churchyards of mossy headstones, occassional grand country estates, bubbly streams in leafy glades...all very familiar from England and Scotland. They have a tradition of whiskey distilling, they have bagpipes, they drive on the left, they have shite weather but I would never make the mistake of calling an Irishman a Brit.
An inland route along backroads takes in pretty country full of all of the scenic clichés with ample time between starting and finishing points for occassional ogle stops.
Rugged, Atlantic-coast scenery around the Ring Of Kerry in the south to the Wild Atlantic Way from Galway. Windswept & interesting, bare, rocky hillsides, bogs & lagoons & coves and both worth the investment in at least a day trip each.
The 6 counties retained as a part of the UK following the Irish War of Independence and partition, the unionist republican cause remains alive although the sectarian violence centred in Derry and Belfast has abated.
