I'm a bit in love with Ireland

Today I was afforded a glimpse into an idealised, romantic, possibly patronising version of Ireland, conjured by the weather, my surroundings, and my own imagination.

I was taken today to the Ulster Folk Museum - compared by the man at the information desk to Sovereign Hill in Victoria. I like this one much better. They have literally transplanted examples of old houses, churches, and so on from wherever they had been standing across Ulster. Stone by stone. The result is a little town that you would think had always been there, with pokey houses burning peat in the fireplaces, and workshops that look as though the owner had just stepped out for a smoke.

There was also a rural area, and it is this that I liked the most. Winding lanes through fields marked by hedgerows or stone walls, and old farmhouses and tiny one-roomed cottiers houses scattered about. The sun was out for some of this, and walking alone up an isolated lane, with black-headed sheep cropping the grass, rabbits running through the fields, butterflys dancing in the hedgerows, and a couple of goats sitting in the lane, I fell head over heels. Possibly my brain had been being seeped in history for a few hours, but there is something just so humanly beautiful about this place. Like I was saying in reference to England yesterday - every inch of the land has been worked on and changed and lived with, for millenia. If sublimity is beauty that makes you insignificant and awestruck, then this is the opposite - beauty that feels like an extension of yourself.

There is plenty here not to like, too, of course. Not everyone is as stupidly romantic and nostalgic as I am. Everywhere there are reminders of the dificulties that have been faced in Northern Ireland, and coming up to the 12th of July the fervour only increases - we saw a bunch of lads with a big Ulster flag outside a pub, yelling profanities at passing traffic. Unfortunately people forget that they no longer have to live in a horrible tiny stone room with a smelly fire against one wall and no electricity or running water, and try to make life miserable for each other for no better reason than that that's what their parents did. Call me naive if you like, but I think the world may be a slightly nicer place if more people were romantic nostalgics like I am.

This chap has it all sorted out, I reckon: