Today’s visits to Glendalough and Kilkenny continued to reinforce the a lot of the things that I have said about tourism in Ireland thus far: I am surprised by the large number of Irish versus the small number of international guests, I am amazed at the way that the tours seem to always come back to Irish culture somehow, and I think that the conversion of many of these formerly rural, blue collar communities into tourist towns is miraculous since I have seen it done much less gracefully.

As far as differences go, I would say that Glendalough did a better job of monetizing tourism than the Cliffs of Moher simply by understanding the environment in which they are in. The Cliffs of Moher and Glendalough are visited by largely the same group of Irish tourists that are not going to be easily baited into paying a ton of money for an average meal or a tourist’s sweatshirt. The difference between these two areas is that Glendalough seems to be aware of this while the cliffs do not. I payed four euros for a meal today at Glendalough; I chose not to purchase anything at the cliffs because it was all simply too expensive. In short, understanding the context in which your attraction exists in enables you to more effectively gain a profit.

Completely unrelated to tourism, business, or the economy, Glendalough truly was beautiful, and Kilkenny was a brilliant town. The Cliffs of Moher were beautiful, but truth be told, I do not think that they even compare to the feeling of getting your feet wet in the lake at Glendalough, standing below majestic mountain ranges, and being entranced by the nature before you.