Ireland

Despite the fact that recently Ireland has known perhaps the most impressive economic growth of any country in the Western world during the past few decades, it still has not lost that ineffable, subtle, yet profound air of an enchanted land.

Its inhabitants, who have the highest literacy rate in the English-speaking world and are sophisticated information scientists, engineers and highly specialized workers for the numerous branches of giant multi-national firms located here, seem, at the same time, never to have abandoned the spirit of a medieval festival.

Friendly, youthful but also discreet, and imaginative; a large number of young people (40% of the population is under 25) who are hard-working but always ready to have a party and make new friends, young families with many children… certainly something that seems to have disappeared in the rest of Europe.