The rain comes first in Ireland

HARD to think, back at the office, that only on Sunday I was on the shores of Lough Gur in south-west Ireland, in a spell of rare sunshine: a place where it was all happening between 1800BC and 1000AD and which is still quite lovely, what with all the dragonflies and cornflowers.

Obviously, my only hope that morning had been that the weather would be fine, ie not raining, so actual sun was a bonus. In Ireland you don’t plan ahead — you wait until the rain holds off and then you do things.

As Bernard Shaw observed, there is no such thing as Irish character but there is the Irish climate. That’s what matters most.