Miscellaneous observations from our visit to Ireland:

• ATMs are plentiful and give the best exchange rates, and do not even exact transaction fees as they all too commonly do in the USA. Credit card transactions do not seem to carry any up-front transaction fees, but the exchange rates are not so good. Travelers' checks are exchanged at relatively poor rates WITH transaction fees on top of that, so that even though we got most of ours for face value only, they were no bargain.  Travelers' Checks in Euros are quite difficult and expensive to pass, even though the Euro is already an official monetary unit for the Republic.
• Two systems of measure seem to share currency, and frequently there is little indication which is meant.  Only older signposts, and those in Northern Ireland, give distances in miles, and they do so without specifying that unit, while the newer ones in the Republic specify "km."  Speed limits seem invariably to be posted in miles per hour (at least I hope that's what they mean!--again, no unit is specified). Even our late-model rental car devotes the primary scale on its speedometer to miles per hour, and its cumulative and trip odometers both read in miles only. The official Blarney-stone photographer sells prints according to inch sizes, but I had to ask what the units were when a price was listed for an eight-by-ten, just to make sure.  Measures for commerce seem to be exclusively on the metric system, though a half liter may be called "pint," and at least one supermarket counter listed prices for meats both per pound and per kilo.
• "Sweet corn," in its frozen or canned kernel form, is esteemed a delicacy worthy of inclusion in any and all salads.
• Cigarette smoking is much more prevalent on the streets and in places of public accommodation here than in the USA.
• In relation to the general cost of groceries and of living, bread is astonishingly cheap.  Of course, the price of bread has a long history as a political hot button, and this may have something to do with it.
• The prevalence of written Irish (the indigenous and official language of the Republic) on highway signs (where it always comes first) and on automobile license plates (on which it specifies county of registration, without translation) seems to reflect nationalist policy and aspirations more than linguistic reality--though I understand that the language revival efforts are progressing, and we have heard it used among locals on Inis Méain and elsewhere.
• I was told that I would have to pay for a special "five-star cover" if I planned to take the rental car "out of the country."  It turns out that Northern Ireland does not count as another country in that or several other respects.  There are no border checkpoints between it and the Republic, as noted in the journal entry for 16 July.  I wonder if we will face customs inspection in passing from Northern Ireland to Scotland.  It seems unlikelly, since they both are parts of the same U.K., and yet if not we shall have evaded customs inspection altogether, since the Republic of Ireland's inspectors had not bothered to show up when we arrived at Shannon.  (American-style 24/7 business hours are quite foreign to the Republic of Ireland generally.)
• I was a little dismayed to find that an ATM in Northern Ireland issued only banknotes from the "Bank of Ulster," which I was advised might not be readily honored in Scotland or England, though the currency was indeed U.K. Sterling and not Republic punts. There are also "Bank of Ireland" banknotes in circulation, confusingly enough, that also are Sterling and not punts.  Bank of England banknotes also circulate in Northern Ireland, though, and we found we could trade in our Northern Ireland banknotes for the more versatile English ones at ordinary shop tills.

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