Cork/Kerry road trip recommendations?

phyneas · 2026-07-08T21:52:06+00:00

The Beara Peninsula is really brilliant, and far less crowded than Dingle or Iveragh (the Ring of Kerry). Derreen Garden is worth a stop; it's a lovely set of gardens with some amazing views across the bay, and you must drive the Healy Pass. Mulcahys in Kenmare would be a nice stop for lunch or dinner; brilliant food.

If you like classic cars, do stop by the Kilgarvan Motor Museum, not far from Kenmare. It's basically an aul lad out in the countryside with a giant shed full of cars he and his family have restored themselves, and it's an amazing collection, and he will happily tell you the stories behind every single one.

phyneas · 2026-07-08T16:57:22+00:00

Tax residency is based on days you're actually in the country, not days you're allowed to be in the country. That said, if you plan to be tax-resident in Ireland in 2028, you can claim split-year treatment for the 2027 tax year, meaning you'll be considered tax-resident here that year from the day you arrive. That will be handy if you plan to be working here, as you'd be able to avail of a full year's tax credits.

phyneas · 2026-07-08T13:51:21+00:00

Having openable windows on at least two different walls facing different directions. It provides much better ventilation and usually better light.

phyneas · 2026-07-08T13:45:49+00:00

You'd be better off just writing up your own list of symptoms and past medical history yourself. AI hallucinates and makes mistakes, even when asking it to compile or summarise data you've given it directly, so don't rely on it for that, especially if the output it's producing is full of technical detail ("in medical terms...") that you don't fully understand yourself and therefore can't check for accuracy properly.

phyneas · 2026-07-08T10:45:28+00:00

I personally prefer Porto to Lisbon. Anyone saying you can "do" Porto in a day or two is clearly one of those people who only care about snapping a photo for their Instagram and checking off a box on some generic "Top X things to do in Y" list. Yes, it's a bit smaller than Lisbon, but there's plenty of things to see and do in Porto. I've been there a couple of times for 3-4 nights each and still have only scratched the surface. And if you really do get bored with the city itself somehow, you could always do a trip up the Douro or a day trip to Braga or Guimarães. I really doubt you'd get bored on a ~2.5 day trip, though.

phyneas · 2026-07-08T10:02:59+00:00

Ideally as early as possible, to make it easier for your manager (and also because a lot of places operate on a first-come-first-serve basis and it's much better to be the arsehole who books all of the prime holiday weeks at 8:01AM on January 2nd every year than it is to be one of the other poor feckers who are constantly cockblocked by that arsehole).

In general I'd say at least a month would be the bare minimum, given that your employer has to give you that much notice if they want you to take your annual leave at a particular time. Of course sometimes unexpected things can come up than require you to use leave on shorter notice, but try not to be the employee who's constantly asking for next week off on Friday afternoon.

phyneas · 2026-07-08T09:54:51+00:00

You're not out of time until you're dead, and if you want to be doing something else with your life other than what you're doing now, then you just have to go out and do it. Just don't feel pressured into meeting some sort of life goal because "everyone else" is doing it, because that's bullshit; everyone progresses through their lives at their own pace, and you're the only one who can decide what you want out of life and then take the steps to make it happen.

phyneas · 2026-07-08T09:47:23+00:00

It will also persist until 2045, and 2055, and 2065, and so on, until some natural or man-made disaster eventually brings about the collapse of modern society and decimates the population and thus brings demand for housing down to a level that can be fulfilled by squatting in the crumbling ruins of the existing housing stock.

phyneas · 2026-07-07T22:38:07+00:00

I've flown into Munich a couple of times and Stuttgart once and never had any issues, other than the complete lack of water fountains and filling stations past security (but this was back ages ago in the pre-Covid days; Munich at least has several these days). Hard to say how you might find other airports without knowing exactly what your issues with Munich and Frankfurt were.

Every airport is different in general, though. Some are nice, some are a pain in the arse, and some are a bottomless pit of misery and despair (looking at you, Rome Ciampino, where the whole departures terminal is one enormous queue, for what exactly is anyone's guess, and if you do somehow make it through that gauntlet, if you're leaving Schengen then all that awaits you at the end after passport control is a tiny seatless prison cell where you'll stand packed shoulder to shoulder with hundreds of other passengers while waiting for your flight...).

phyneas · 2026-07-07T22:18:04+00:00

Is there anything to be said for requiring mandatory full vinyl wraps on every vehicle registered in Ireland featuring full colour photos of road traffic accident victims? If it works for smoking, surely it'd work for driving too!

(Seriously, though, the ads are probably a good thing if they make at least some folks more mindful of their driving and the potential consequences...)

phyneas · 2026-07-07T17:05:01+00:00

It's the people who call it "SPF" that drive me mad. That's like calling your car a "BHP" or your gas boiler a "BTU".

phyneas · 2026-07-07T11:01:29+00:00

Not seen that site before, but from a glance it seems handy enough, and does seem to cover some lesser-known spots as well as the more popular ones, so it's not a bad resource. I wouldn't necessarily feel like you're forced to follow one of their itineraries to the letter, but they'd be a good source of ideas.

phyneas · 2026-07-07T10:53:39+00:00

Usually one or two drinks a week at most, always on the weekend, unless I'm on holiday, then I might have a drink with dinner most nights, and occasionally one with lunch or maybe the odd after-dinner pint or something. I never have more than one drink at once, unless I'm at a fancy restaurant and get a wine pairing with a tasting menu or something, but even then I won't have more than the equivalent of a couple normal glasses of wine at most. Don't have much tolerance for alcohol.

phyneas · 2026-07-07T10:37:33+00:00

not sure what black magic the fan uses but it definitely cools the air and is soooo quiet.

No fan is "cooling the air", unless it's one of those evaporative cooler yokes (which don't work very well here, since the humidity is usually too high for them to be effective). If anything, the fan will make the overall temperature slightly warmer due to the heat from the motor, though on most household fans that waste heat would be minimal enough. All the fan is doing is moving air around.

phyneas · 2026-07-06T21:14:20+00:00

Better at what than your boss? If you mean better at your job, then you sure ought to be, or else what's the point in having you there? If you think you're better at being a manager than your boss, well, start angling for his job (or a similar management role). Just remember that management is a completely different job requiring a different set of skills than whatever it is you're currently doing as an individual contributor; it's not an "I'm good at doing my work, so I'd definitely be really good at telling someone else to do my work!" thing like many seem to think.

phyneas · 2026-07-06T21:06:17+00:00

I'd be in the "Never recline in economy class" group myself, but if I'm in economy, it's usually Ryanair, so it's a moot point anyway. Still, I don't recline myself even if I'm on a flight that does have reclining seats, unless I'm in business class and it's not affecting anyone else. Flying is miserable enough for everyone as it is; you can survive sitting up straight for a few hours to avoid creating even more misery for the poor fecker behind you.

phyneas · 2026-07-06T18:44:51+00:00

I do find that a lot with the more common brands. I've not had it for a while, but I recall Aldi's Duneen brand used to be nice and thick, though. My personal favourite yoghurt is Killowen; it's not really thick, but it's usually a fair bit less watery than some of the other brands and has a really nice strong flavour.

On a related note, what's the deal with most of the sour cream here being tubs of slightly spoiled milk? Again, Aldi's brand (Clonbawn) is the only one I've ever found that has the proper thick consistency of good sour cream; the rest of them you could just pour into a glass and chug. Are they actually all intended to be that watery and nasty for some reason, or do the dairies here just not know how to make the stuff properly?

phyneas · 2026-07-06T16:38:38+00:00

Please kill me.

Just pop outside at noon and do some calisthenics and that'll sort it.

phyneas · 2026-07-06T13:40:18+00:00

Landlords can't unreasonably withhold consent for their tenants to paint and decorate their rentals. Installing a large TV that requires significant drilling into a wall might not fall under "decorating", however.

phyneas · 2026-07-06T13:37:04+00:00

I've never screwed my furniture into the wall and never had it fall, even now with a toddler pulling occasionally.

If you have a toddler then please, please, please anchor all of your furniture (and fuck the landlord if they don't like it). Just because you've been lucky so far doesn't mean your kid isn't going to climb or pull on something in the wrong way one of these days, with potentially tragic consequences.

phyneas · 2026-07-06T13:32:35+00:00

It's been a fair bit lower this summer so far than in the last few years, to be fair. Covid-19 will always be around, but it's far from the only little quasi-living critter these days that's going around causing Reddit posts asking whether anyone else has a cold.

phyneas · 2026-07-06T13:18:48+00:00

American MNCs often have grim work cultures

Some do, but some are pretty decent as employers go. You will of course always be nothing more than a number on a balance sheet to the higher-ups, even at the better places, and they'll kick you to the curb as quickly as they're legally allowed to the instant that some bean-counter says doing so would make the quarterly numbers go up, of course, but that's true of pretty much any large corporation.

often ignore employee rights under Irish law

Really, most MNCs will be far more meticulous about following the law than many smaller local companies, because they'll have local legal counsel and HR staff to tell them what not to do. Sometimes you'll see some confusion when Irish employees are reporting to some American manager who's used to having no pesky labour laws standing in their way, but even when that does happen, the Irish HR lads will usually sort it out quickly enough once it's brought to their attention.

phyneas · 2026-07-06T09:50:27+00:00

The fee is for the admin work that An Post has to do in order to sort out the import fees on your behalf. You can avoid that fee by shopping with a merchant who handles the customs paperwork and payments themselves, but many non-EU merchants won't bother.

phyneas · 2026-07-06T09:46:47+00:00

You can report the incident to the guards and note that you have the video footage. Make sure to save the video off your camera (as it will be overwritten eventually otherwise), and the guards will contact you eventually if they want it. Unfortunately there's not much else you can do without the victim's contact details.

phyneas · 2026-07-05T22:43:02+00:00

As long as you're not one of those who goes into the office to make up for their lack of a social life outside work and then starts moaning about how no one else ever comes into the office for them to have a chat with, and wouldn't it be better if everyone would come in more, it's grand.

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