Meathman's Diary: Tourism without the tinsel
Anyone who visits the US will notice that they like to milk every last dollar out of absolutely everything. The ultimate capitalists. All part of the American dream.
As a pertinent example, the yanks are widely regarded to have invented paid parking with the world’s first parking meter being installed in 1935 in Oklahoma City. Dubbed the “Park-O-Meter,” the device was hailed as the "greatest traffic invention since the stoplight,” according to reporter William H Orrick Jr with the California Law Review.
A publication released around that time, ‘The Bulletin of the National Tax Association"’ explained the workings of these strange new Park-O-Meters: “In the old days horses went to the hitching post, no fee; in these modern days our substitute for the horse goes to the Park-O-Meter, pays the fee and can stand as legally permitted until the meter squawks for another ante.”
On one hand, you’d have to admire their business acumen. It’s a handy way to make a buck. But on the other side of the coin (which are hard to come by in our cashless society, so you’re probably better off keeping them for the aforementioned parking metre), you are paying for a blank space. In some parts of this island, the pleasure of borrowing this 4x2 metre patch of asphalt can cost upwards of €4.10 an hour, while the same piece of ground a mile out the road is free.
The American system of penny squeezing applies to their historical landmarks (those that haven’t been demolished and turned into a Wal-Mart).
On a trip to San Francisco after finishing college, I wandered down to Fisherman’s Wharf which overlooks the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz. My outstanding memory of the place is the cannibalistic greed of the merchants in the area who were falling across each other to sell trinkets of the sites. I was chased down the street with shouts of manic merchants shouting increasingly insane offers into my ears like: “Would you like to bike across the bridge sir’, ‘Would you like a piece of the original Alcatraz wall, can I interest you in the little finger of the first prisoner to die in the prison?’
While the sites were nice, they were spoiled by their relentless exploitation.
This is the exact opposite of Ireland’s tourist sites which are, with the odd exception untamed, unspoilt and under-exploited, existing to serve as an experience rather than an asset.
Looking at some of our local landmarks you feel the Americans could learn a thing or two.
Sheep roam freely around the Hill of Tara and on the porch fields just outside Trim Castle. Cattle scratch their heads on the walls of Bective Abbey and the residents around Newgrange are unbothered despite having a world-famous landmark on their doorstep.
While vultures and cuckoos are gobbling up our housing, a night in a hotel will cost you your first born and it’s cheaper to fill your car with Dom Perignon rather than diesel, it’s good to know some parts of the country still exist for those that live here.