Sorry, but I'm up on my soap box again....

There's an expression out there, "that's very Irish" it usually refers to being incompetent or stupid.

The Cliffs of Moher are probably the most popular tourist destination in Ireland, receiving well over a million visitors each year. I visited the cliffs for the first time when I was in seventeen and again six years ago, I was taken aback by their beauty and splendour and still am. They were one of the locations that I earmarked to do this year and always considered my site somewhat incomplete without them, by the way that also includes all the other places I've yet to show ye.

I had heard that their was a new interpretive centre at the cliffs, how the heck do you interpret cliffs. It should be called a tourist rip off centre. You are charged €8 ($10) for the privilege of parking. Clare County Council do not tell you this until you go to leave. There were no signs "clearly visible" stating the parking fees and then the machine swallowed my ticket, so no receipts.

One of my best memories of the cliffs was being able to crawl out to the edge and look straight down at the waves crashing against the wall of rock below. You can't do that any more, they now prevent people from going to the very edge. I was speaking to one of the rangers there and he said "shure were sick of people throwing themselves off the edge" believe me folks if you want to throw yourself off the Cliffs of Moher you still can do it quite easily and a person siting in the golf cart with the whistle can't and won't be able to stop you. You are no longer allowed to walk the edge for fear of eroding a fragile environment, but I thought the cliffs were in a constant state of erosion.

The cliffs are still an amazing site, but the politicians and councillors in their efforts to make this famous tourist destination a better and more enjoyable experience have only managed to give it a can of handicap. Very Irish indeed.