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”.