O stony grey soil of Monaghan The laugh from my love you thieved; You took the gay child of my passion And gave me your clod-conceived.
You clogged the feet of my boyhood And I believed that my stumble Had the poise and stride of Apollo And his voice my thick-tongued mumble.
You told me the plough was immortal! O green-life-conquering plough! Your mandril strained, your coulter blunted In the smooth lea-field of my brow.
You sang on steaming dunghills A song of cowards’ brood, You perfumed my clothes with weasel itch, You fed me on swinish food.
The plough may still be immortal and the swinish food all gone but the Benz and the Beamer are managing to sneak a look in. Some cars I have seen lately are an astouding sight on the road. I never thought I would see a Mercedes 500 clk with Leitrim plates (covered in shit too). I hope I never do again. If it was like Thailand they would be white elephants and the King would collect them and give them protection, the amazing rarity they are. I think he has 8 at the moment.
I came across a website called http://www.mywheels.ie/VehicleStatistics.aspx. It shows the car buying habits of the people of Ireland for the last 3 years and there are some interesting results in the Border Midlands West region, known ironically as the BMW. The biggest selling car in Leitrim this year is the BMW 3 series. It was the biggest selling car last year in Dublin, Cork, Kildare, Wicklow and Limerick. In Limerick they preferred the Toyota Corolla in 2008.
Poem by Patrick Kavanagh, available here
an analysis that revealed that there are 621 ghost estates across the country (where a ghost estate consisted of an estate of ten houses or more house built post-2005 where more than 50 percent of units are either vacant or under-construction). What the analysis reveals is that the phenomenon of ghost estates is endemic to every county in Ireland
…
The data reveals is that counties Leitrim (21 estates), Longford (19) and Roscommon (35) have a particularly high ratio of estates per head of population, suggesting that these estates constitute an oversupply in the market. These are followed by Sligo (24), Cavan (21), Monaghan (18), Carlow (15), Cork County (90), Tipperary North (16), Kilkenny (21), Westmeath (18), and Laois (15). Whilst some of these estates are vacant holiday home developments, they nevertheless are presently surplus to demand and are unlikely to be purchased in the short term whilst the market is still trying to find its bottom.
http://irelandafternama.wordpress.com/2010/01/27/ghost-estates-per-county/