Borris, Ireland

I went to Ireland for a week in early October with my mother. We did a 4-day bicycle tour around County Kilkenny, staying in B&Bs. While the countryside is just as beautiful as we've been led to believe by the in the calendar photos (softly rolling hills resplendent with softly-rolled sheep), the most interesting aspect of Ireland is seeing the rapid transformation of the culture resulting from recent economic growth.

The quaint old country is still there, and most of my photos are of the cutesy bits because they're...cute, but there's more: scratch under the surface and you'll find hints of the social forces that are turning the Emerald Isle upside-down. In the quaint town of Borris, the town council has erected a little information kiosk. It's next to the picnic benches in a little park off the main street and it displays the sort of thing you'd expect the stewards of any small town would want to use to promote the place: a map showing where the church is, a list of local restraunts, and a short history:

BORRIS, with its undulating surroundings - a pleasing patchwork of pasture and village, sheltered by strategic hill from wild Atlantic weather - retains an atmosphere of peace and age-old settlement, despite the onslaughts of juggernaut! Farming is still a mainstay, while a thriving industry of engineering, machinery sales, casket and candle making, haulage and construction is bridging the gap created by the new technology of the late 1900s.

Did you catch what's going on between the lines there? What's this "juggernaut" that is threatening the town? Who is this "gap" between? If this is what the town council wants to say to tourists, imagine what they really think about the changing way of life in Ireland.