All their songs are merry

Example:

I had been to Dublin on a coach trip from a camp site in Wales (take too long to explain) and we met some Irish lads on the boat who had a box of Guiness and were traveling to a Grand Prix somewhere. It was to be a long trip for them but literally minutes after we'd sat down next to them they were but tins of beer in our hands and kept our spirits up right across the Irish Sea.

never have actually met anybody who didn't like ireland, but studying anthropology in vienna you meet loads of people, from whom you get one or the other strange look when mentioning ireland as probably your favourite place. I really don't know what it is that makes me come back over and over again. considering I am quite a continental citizen, it must the sea and the shores I guess... (that's only one among many other reasons, such as *cough* being a guitar player and two more letters.. haha ;)...)

Yes, I remember, especially 15 or 20 years ago when not a lot of people actually went there on holiday I would get a lot of strange looks and 'But what about the rain!'. This from Dutch people who live in a country that has very similar weather to Ireland.

there's also one more thing, especially in regard to dub. vienna and dublin, there is lots of similarities in temperament, bad temper (but in a sympathetic way), scruffiness, roughness, a good portion of morbidity...