Ireland has had only one case of swine flu; Book now!

May 5, 4:08 PMDC Ireland & UK Travel ExaminerLaura Harrison McBride

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Kylemore Abbey gardens, Ireland (SP Tiley Photo)

Ireland has had one case of swine flu. One has to wonder why we even measure such things. And it wasn't a bad case at all, at all. Plus, the Irish are quite laid back about such things, unlike the more volatile warmer nations...like Spain, for example.

In Spain last week, a man with a rash was clapped into the hospital prison/psycho ward, they were so scared. According to the AP report, medical staff wouldn't even take his temperature, but rather passed him a thermometer so he could do that himself. He didn't know how to read a thermometer, the old kind. Couldn't they have passed him one of the instant-read variety? Moreover, couldn't they have turned down the heat and/or opened a window? The guy claimed he felt like a Kentucky fried chicken before they finally let him out. BTW, he was healthy. He had a rash. Could have been something he ate.

So...anyway...if you haven't been terrified out of your wits and cancelled your vacation (as the Today Show cancelled its already truncated travel extravaganza, on which more later), and you decide to go to Ireland, here are some things you should know:

• A priest once told me, years ago, that no one ever got sick from the communion cup. Meaning that, in at least Anglican churches where the chalice is passed (Church of Ireland, or C. of I.), sip away. You'll be fine. You can find lots of churches to visit by looking up the high crosses, some of which are at Roman Catholic sites, and some at C. of I.  sites.
• Or, you can visit a holy well, to get over anything ailing you, or maybe stock up health karma for later.
• Guinness is good for you. That's what their advertising has said for years. Many people believe doctors prescribe it for old people and pregnant women to build them up. I give it to my horse now and then for the same reason. Plus he likes it. Why not? He's named after a character in an Irish novel. As an aside, Maurice Reidy, the late owner of the sadly closed Reidy's Restaurant in NYC once told me that doctors prescribed trips on the Staten Island ferry for sickly Irishwomen struggling iwth too little money and too many kids early in the last century.
• If you do feel a bit down--that throaty thing going on--take the Irish cure prescribed by my father and ignored by me until I was at least 20; I had a terrible throaty thing over Christmas when our doctor was away, so I finally gave in. All you do is heat up some whole milk to the same temperature at which you'd drink hot chocolate, and then toss a big old lump of butter into it. Not margarine. Butter. Let it melt. As it does, drink the stuff. It works. If it doesn't cure--and it isn't, after all, medicinal, having no bit of the 'crayture' such as Jameson's added--but it coats and soothes and makes one feel a lot better. The taste isn't too bad, although the oily consistency is gag-able, and it kinda smells. But it does soothe.
• Go to the Lusmagh in County Offaly and see if you can scare up an herbalist. The Lusmagh is home to abundant medicinal plants, and doubtless one of them would give you relief from the swine flu, or any other zoomorphic flu (bird, for example.)

RE: The Today Show. Every year, I looked forward to Where in the world is Matt Lauer? I'm a bit parochial in my travel tastes--mainly Ireland, England and France--so I liked seeing exotic places I will probably never get to because of my Ireland/UK/France devotion. I thought it was ludicrous for NBC to cancel that week of wonders because of the economy...like anyone thinks it matters what NBC spends on such stuff. Plus, so many of the rest of us are looking at a trip to the local carnival as exotic this year, it would have been a lovely public service for Today to carry on as usual and show us some nifty venues.

"But Nooooooo," to quote the late, great John Belushi as newscaster. They had to cancel, and substitute some local and not very exotic stuff. Key West was about as wild as they were going to get, and that's not very wild. Key West used to be wild, and the end of the island away from the cruise line docks is still real, still not Disney-ized. Thankfully. But give me a break! If you're going to spend to go to Key West (not cheap; no tropical island is cheap), you might as well hop a shoulder-season flight  on Aer Lingus or Virgin Atlantic (my two favorites to those parts) to a really interesting vacation, in Ireland or England, for example. Or even go in the summer; just like us, their venues are dropping prices to lure visitors, too.

NBC isn't going anywhere. But you still can. I advise taking your nice vacation if you possibly can, and putting your video up on YouTube for us all to watch; maybe NBC will ultimately rue its decision to be the curmudgeon of the airwaves, keeping Matt at home and boring us for all 52 weeks of the year.