Enjoy the praise

World’s top five

Those annual league tables – the world’s best restaurant, the world’s best city break, or the world’s best honeymoon destination – are often envy-mag titillations designed to generate tourism and sell plane tickets. That is, of course, until we win a ‘best-of’ accolade.

Next year’s Lonely Planet guide is to name Ireland one of the top five places in the world to visit because “the cosmopolitan, contemporary Irish are just as friendly and welcoming as their forebears were known to be”.

So there it is, after more than half a decade of “austerity” people from all around the world want to come and visit us because we’re such nice people and such good fun. It is, of course, easy to be too flippant about these things, and sometimes it’s best to accept the enviable praise gracefully and work to ensure that it remains justified.

It is reassuring too that the great effort that went into developing the 1,500km Wild Atlantic Way has been recognised. It is described as a rival to California’s Pacific Coast Highway or Australia’s Great Ocean Road. High praise indeed.