If you're wondering what clothes to bring to Ireland, the answer is all of them.
You may have been fooled by tourist photographs of young people sitting around outside Dublin pubs and cafes, sipping a cold Guinness and enjoying the soft caress of hailstones on their skin.

But bear in mind that the Irish are in fact a Mediterranean people who simply happen to live in the wrong country, and that their attitude to the weather is a victory of optimism over experience: every time it rains they look up at the sky with a sense of shock and betrayal. Then they go out and buy a new umbrella.

After all, the last time the sun shone on consecutive days was when St Patrick was alive, and most years the Irish only realise it's the summer because the rain gets a litle warmer.

So bring your brolly, and something warm.

However, as of earlier this year, accessories you won't need include plastic naughty bits, L-plates, shaving foam, an iron-clad liver and all the necessities for stag and hen parties, which most of the 35 pubs in Dublin's trendy Temple Bar area banned on the basis that all that enjoyment was getting in the way of the drinking.


You will probably want to experience the pubs.preferably as part of the organised literary pub crawls hosted by actors who perform extracts from the likes of Samuel Beckett's "Waiting for Godot" and Oscar Wilde's "The Importance of Being Earnest."

Don't worry that the knowledge gained on the tour will make you too serious a person: since a drink is taken at each establishment along the way, the effect of the evening will be to simultaneously expand your brain and destroy it, so that at the end of the night you will feel exactly the same as before, except minus nine euros and with a curious sense of well-being.

Which is, for a lot more money, exactly the feeling you will get from the city's latest luxury hotel, The Merrion, a row of converted Georgian town houses so discreet that my girlfriend and I drove past it four times before we found it.

It's in the south of the city, where Dublin's rich built their enormous houses and where the well-off still live, untroubled by the well-known gag that girls in the north of the city may have fake jewellery, but at least they have real orgasms.

Anyway, where was I? Ah yes, as a result of the fact that The Merrion is practically invisible, we arrived much too late for any sensible person to have dinner, but were brought in from the night, ensconced in a room the size of a planet and led gently down to the brasserie, where staff as witty as only Dublin waiters and waitresses can be stuffed us gently with food and drink for several hours before we went to sleep in a bed the size and texture of a cloud.

Very expensive. Very worth it.

If you've stayed there, you've probably spent so much that you'll have to leave Dublin immediately and head for Cork.

As you drive further south into the depths of the country, you will have to bear two things in mind. First is time. While Dublin is more or less on Greenwich Mean Time, rural Ireland is on anything between 10 minutes and three days behind GMT. depending on the position of the earth and the whereabouts of the man with the keys to the hall.
So do not expect things to happen quickly, unless you happen to be in a pub when a policeman comes in after closing time, in which case everyone will leave very quickly - after finishing their pint, of course - since the relativity argument is, shockingly, not accepted as a valid defence in the Irish courts.

Secondly, as you drive south, you will notice that signposts, which in the rest of the world are used to guide you, are based on the same relativity argument, that there is no fixed reference point in the universe, and certainly not west of Mullingar.

As a result you will often find signs pointing into fields, or signs past the junction to which they refer. You will also see that signs are in both Irish and English, which allows you to get lost in both languages. And it's no use asking directions, for the answer you will invariably get is: "If I was you I wouldn't start from here at all."
In fact, if by some miracle you do end up in Cork, you will probably find, as I did the last time I was there, that people will jump into their car and go miles out of their way to lead you to where you want to go.

Which will, for a start at least, be Cork city, home of a huge jazz festival and smaller film festival in October. Cork is intimate and walkable, from the old bow-fronted shopwindows of curving Patrick Street to the leafy neo-Gothic glades of the university. But to be honest, if I had a choice I'd spend a day and maybe a night in the city, having dinner in The Ivory Tower if I was flush, or the Farmgate Cafe if I wasn't, then stay at the Arbutus Lodge and the next day head west.

Naturally, although you might, I'd have no need to call in at Blarney, six miles north-west of Cork, to kiss the famous stone, since being Irish I was born with a tale on my tongue and another on the hob.

No, what I'd be heading for is Kinsale, where restaurants like the Oystercatcher, Max's Wine Bar and Blue Haven have turned this little fishing village into the gourmet capital of Ireland, attracting French, German and English retirees in such quantities that the apparent down-and-out in ancient tweeds that you ask for directions to the nearest pub will probably reply in a cut glass accent: "Certainly, old chap. I think you'll find it's down there on the left."

I know. I was that tourist.

o sit yourself down, order a pint of stout and strike up a conversation, if one doesn't come to you first. And if anyone mentions religion and asks which one you are, the correct answer is: "I'm an atheist, thank God.''
Then change the subject and buy a drink.


Factfile
Getting there
Cheapest flights are with Ryanair (0870 156 9569, www.ryanair.com) from Cardiff to Dublin. If you've time on your hands, Stena Line (0870 570 7070) sails twice daily from Holyhead to Dun Laoghaire in three and a half hours.

Dublin
For literary pub crawls gather at Duke's pub on Duke Street. Tours cost £6 and take place on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays from 7.30pm and on Sundays from noon and from 7.30pm.
If you'd rather stay sober, one might well enquire what you're doing in Dublin, but a hop-on, hop-off bus tour of the city costs £8 (and includes discount tickets to many Dublin museums). Tours leave from O'Connell, go around Trinity College and St Stephen's Green and head north to Phoenix Park then back along the Liffey.
Excellent walking tours conducted by graduates of Trinity College leave from the front gate of the college at noon on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, and cost £6.
The Merrion is at Upper Merrion Street, Dublin 2. Nightly rates start at £200 for a room in the garden wing to £675 for a suite in the main house. For details call 00 353 1 603 0600, e-mail info@merrionhotel.com or visit the website at www.merrionhotel.com
Charleville Lodge is a large and fine guest house at 268-272 North Circular Road, Dublin 7 (00 353 1 838 6633). Double rooms are £65 including breakfast. Or try the comfortable Townhouse (00 353 1 878 8808) at 47-48 Gardiner St Lower, where weekend prices start at £35 per person per night.

Cork:
The Ivory Tower is moderate to expensive and has one of the most eclectic and adventurous menus you're ever likely to see. It's at 35 Princes Street, telephone 00 353 21 274665. The Farmgate Cafe at English Market is simple, cheap and very good. Call 00 353 21 278134.
Arbutus Lodge is on the expensive side of moderate, but worth it for the feeling of being a guest in a very private villa. Great restaurant and wine list, too. Call 00 353 21 501237.
In Kinsale, The Oystercatcher is at 00 353 21 770822. Max's is at 00 353 21 772443 and Blue Haven, which is also a small hotel, is at 00 353 21 772209.

For general information:
Bord Failte, the very helpful Irish tourist board, is at Baggot Street Bridge, Dublin 2, 00 353 1 676 5871, Dublin Airport at 00 353 1 284 4768 and Cork city at 021 273251.
The best guide to Ireland is probably Fodor's, if only because I wrote part of it. The Cadogan is also good. The APA Insight Guide is good on background, less so on detail.