I was delighted to hear another wonderful story of a myguideIreland Guest enjoying their Ireland vacation last week.

However I was even more thrilled when they enquired about our affiliate program and how they could work with myguideIreland to earn a little extra income for themselves from promoting our website.

Our Guest has create a lovely Irish blog about visiting Ireland and I was just delighted to share it with you all.

Anyone else who would like to promote their blogs or learn about our affiliate program – please be sure to contact us at ireland@myguideireland.com

Here at myguideIreland we take great pride in providing a professional and personal service to our Guests when they travel to Ireland.  We hear about great experiences almost daily from our Guests and we just wanted to share (ok maybe show off) one of our latest responses to a wonderful Ireland vacation provided by one of our most experienced Ireland guides,  Genevieve .

Genevieve – Diana and I returned last Friday from our trip to Ireland (already filled out my survey from myguideIreland on line) and I wanted to send you a quick thank you note.
We had a wonderful time and the weather was perfect (which I will give you full credit for!). All of the travel details worked out from getting the car to the B&Bs and Ballyseede Castle.  Ballyseede was a wonderful experience, I am really glad we stayed there two nights. We stayed in the Coghill room and it was amazing. We ate at the bar the first night and then in the dining room for dinner our second night – all of the food including the breakfasts was delicious.

We stayed at White House B&B in Blarney – excellent and the best overall B&B; Dromcloc House near Bantry – beautiful location and very nice folks; Purple Heather near Killarney which was nice but we probably wouldn’t stay there again and Roncalli House in Galway which was very nice (tiniest bathroom but it worked!).
We visited Waterford Crystal, Blarney Castle, Kinsale, Bantry, Healy Pass in Beara Peninsula, Killarney with a trap ride through the Gap of Dunloe and a boat trip to Ross Castle (perfectly wonderful!), Dingle Peninsula which was amazing, Cliffs of Moher and Galway.
Your advice and support was outstanding and I am heartily recommending myguideIreland to all of my friends and family – don’t know how our trip could have gone any better. Thank you again for helping make our 30th anniversary everything I hoped it would be.
Please pass this note along to your coworkers who also helped us.
Dennis Slevin

Fundraising efforts to reintroduce the sorely missed Swansea to Cork Ferry are now entering a crucial period where time is running out and donations are quickly needed.

The West Cork Tourism Co-Op are aiming for one final push to re-establish the Swansea to Cork Ferry service which aims to revive the ailing tourism industry in the area.

Over €2 million has already been successfully raised from all over Cork and Kerry but they still need one final push to reach the magic €3 million figure that will see the Ferry active again.

More Roadshows announced and Kerry hotline established  for fundraising

On its dedicated website www.bringbacktheswanseacorkferry.com ,  further details have been released on new roadshows as well as a Kerry hotline set up for ferry share pledges – details can be be found here

The Ferry service between Cork and Swansea is estimated to be worth €35 million annually to the South West region and its loss is being sorely felt amongst its business owners.

Here at myguideIreland, we wish organisers all the best and lets hope they prove successful in seeing their enormous effort get over the line and bring prosperity back to this beautiful part of Ireland.

I love the songs of Leonard Cohen and the title of this piece is one of his most famous songs. A gentle sad song of goodbye. Cohen is generally regarded as the bedsit troubadour, the man who sings sad depressing songs for lonely over-emotional students. In fact, I personally find him uplifting, life-affirming and thought provoking but that’s not the point of this blog.

Today one of our team here at myguideIreland leaves us and it’s fair to say his leaving will create a huge hole in our hearts. The word “unique” is overused, usually when people can’t think of another word for special or unusual but in the case of Yuichi Hashimoto the word is tailor made for him: “existing as the only one or as the sole example; single; solitary in type or characteristics ” (definition courtesy of Dictionary.com)

Yuichi came to our company to work for the Japanese market inbound to Ireland having already lived in Cork city for some time. He arrived in Ireland with a sense of adventure, very little money and a patchy knowledge of the English language. By the time he arrived at our offices unannounced and looking for a job, he had developed a strong Cork city accent, a mastery of northside Cork City slang and quite a few shall we say “interesting” phrases in the Irish language. So what did he bring to the company? Boundless enthusiasm, energy, optimism, fun, surprise and the uncanny knack of saying something funny loudly when it was not meant for an audience and sparking a wave of laughter throughout our open plan offices. Yes he worked hard and contributed greatly to our company but he gave us many more intangible things which are harder to decribe.

His unquenchable enthusiasm for eating fish, his developing skills as a soccer player with our company team “Who Are Ye? FC” despite never having played at an organised level before, his contributions (not only monetary!) to our Thursday night poker games, his golfing skills honed on the great pitch and putt course in the sand dunes at Rosscarbery, his ability to strike up a conversation with anyone, of any age, anywhere; how are those attributes measured and weighed in a career resume?

Yuichi is moving to London with his girlfriend, Fabiana – the Japanese speaking Italian girl he met in Cork - and we will miss them both. Okay, so they won’t be so far away and we will see Yuichi again I am sure. It’s just that it is natural for us to get a bit misty eyed. It’s always tempting to think of your loss when someone leaves, what we will miss, how different it will be and that’s where Leonard comes in. You see he is a very wise man and what the song says is “I will miss you when you leave but I celebrate knowing you”. So today let’s celebrate.