The West of Ireland is, I think, a more extreme version of the rest of the country. No matter what sort of conditions are influencing the country, they are more so in the west. It seems to have been true throughout history-- in the 19th century alone, the Blight hit hardest in the West, as did the Famine, and then most of the emigration came from Connacht too. Right now, I would describe the West (or at least my part of it) as: stucco-walled, tile-roofed houses with lace curtains, heated by turf fires and with broadband wireless internet. This combination of tradition and cutting-edge1 technology is pretty typical of Ireland these days: in Dublin, for example, there are internet cafés in 18th-century buildings.
If you haven't been to Ireland, I'm guessing you've never smelled a turf fire. Turf-- or peat-- is cut from the bogs and dried into brown bricklike chunks. The smell is unique: kind of like wet leaves burning, but with a sort of brackish oceanic touch to it. I enjoy it quite a bit. Though my apartment has electric heaters, I keep my window cracked when I see the bluish smoke spiraling up from my neighbor's chimneys.2
1: I really don't like this term. It seems so... late 80's, I guess. I always think of dial-up modem sounds and black computer screens with green graph lines when I see the phrase "cutting-edge". Which, I guess, is pretty ironic-- the term itself has an implication that is the opposite of what it originally meant? But I can't think of a better word right now.
2: You can tell that I am my father's daughter, because when I see chimneys the first thing I look for is raincaps. Most houses around here don't have them for some reason, but then again the roofs are pretty steep and made of the kind of tile that would get quite slippery in the (frequent) rains.
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