The Emerald Shores of Ireland - Part 8

The Emerald Shores of Ireland
A trip journal by David Bowers
9/2/08-9/11/08
Part 8

We then continued out to a hospital, which looked way smaller than our concept of hospital, almost more like an urgent care facility, and hey it even had a pharmacy located right next door. The luggage was dropped off, Jerry was picked up, and we continued on our way. We then left Galway via a major motorway and headed to Bunratty.

On the way to Bunratty, Jerry mentioned we were on one of Ireland's new major motorways, a divided highway (or "double carriageway" as they call it). He mentioned that one of the benefits of the new highway is that it allows us to bypass Ennis on our way to Galway, a move that cuts about a half hour off the travel time. My Hitchhikers Guide voice inside recited the quote "It's a Bypass, you've got to build Bypasses" On the way to Bunratty, Jerry explained that we would be making two stops, one at the Village of Bunratty which would make an excellent lunch and shopping stop, then we would head to Bunratty Folk Park. Bunratty Folk Park is an Irish amusement park of sorts, a heritage park that endeavors to let its visitors have a glimpse of the "Good old Irish Days". The park consists of thatched roof buildings, crafters plying old time crafts and other exhibits of a historic nature. Then that night we will have a schedule change, yesterdays schedule change was minor, we merely reversed the order of the attractions, today the change would be to our dinner. We were scheduled to attend dinner at the Corn Barn in the Folk Park, which is meant to present a traditional Irish dinner from the common citizens point of view, with Irish Stew and other traditional favorites followed by some singing, dancing and storytelling. The problem is that since our tour group grew so large, the hall could not accommodate us all at one sitting, and wanted to split us up between the two sittings. Well on a group tour, the logistics of that would have been difficult to say the least, but the Folk Park also puts on a medieval banquet in the castle, which is cost wise a more expensive option, but they also could accommodate us all in one sitting, so we would end the night with the medieval banquet.

The nature of the folk park and the banquet allowed Jerry to give us our Irish history lesson of the day. We had heard that they had a feudal society where there were very few landowners, but they owned large amounts of land which they rented out to others to work, so they were particularly well off. Well, the other side of that coin, is that the rents were so steep that they left the renters with just enough money to survive, if that much. Jerry referred to this as "Castle vs. Cabin" You were either very well off, or you were just scraping by. Apparently the landowners knew they were not the most popular people in the city, as when the tenants came to pay their rent, they would sit at a large table that had a drawer in it. The tenant would place their rent in the drawer, which would be rotated around so the landlord could empty it. That way the two parties were kept reasonably far apart. Well, this led to the creation of a union of sorts, the Irisah Land League, whereby the farmers got together and they were wise enough not to pay norent, but they only gave the landlord what they thought was a fair and just share. This went over about as well as you may have suspected, and the landlord evicted them. This is when phase two of the operation came about when no one would associate themselves with the landlord, conduct business with him, buy anything, in effect isolated him. This led the landlord to have to hire people to harvest his crops, then hire security to protect the hired workers, which in turn meant that his overhead costs became more than the crop was worth. The name of the hapless landlord? Charles Boycott, and as Paul Harvey would say, "Now you know the rest of the story!"

As we were nearing the village, Jerry made some more important announcements, this one having to deal with a subject dear to anybody's heart: legally avoiding the evil tax collector. One of the benefits of being a non European Union citizen in Ireland on a valid Tourist entry is that we are not obligated to pay the Value Added Tax I mentioned yesterday. Recall the Value Added Tax is similar to a sales tax and weighs in at a staggering 21%. We are obliged to pay the tax on food, services and any items we buy for use while in Ireland. However, any items we intend to export out of Ireland unused, we basically have the right to attempt to not pay the tax on. Since we are talking about trying to deprive a government of tax revenue, you can be assured they did not make this process easy, not at all.

You see, it is up to each individual merchant to decide if they want to participate in the tax free shopping program, and the reason they might not is the burden of work that falls on the merchant. If the merchant decides to offer tax free shopping, and do it themselves, they have to fill out a form when you are at the store detailing your purchase, and collect the tax anyway. Then you have to fill out part of the form with your mailing instructions, and information required by the government such as proof of nationality, given as entering your passport number. You then have to take the items with you to the port where you leave Ireland, haul them over to an inspector who will look at your form, and could ask to see the items, mind you this is after baggage check. If he is satisfied, he will stamp your form, then you have to drop the form into the mailbox. Once the merchant receives the form back on the mail, it is on them to process and mail out a refund check. Worse yet, they will most likely write the check in Euros, causing you some bank service fees to get it cashed. You can see why merchants may not want to get involved, and those that do may impose minimums to make sure it is worth their while. Ireland has no legally mandated minimum, say like Italy that restricts the program to big-ticket items only.

The more common option is the merchant has outsourced this operation to a broker, in which case the forms used will be the standardized forms of that broker, the good news for the traveler is that instead of merely dropping off the form in the mail at the airport, they will see a cashier affiliated with that broker who will pay them the refund, in cash right at the airport. The merchant likes it because they are out of the whole claims processing end of the business, and the cost of the service is paid by the customer in the form of a commission off the total refund due. The customer then takes the refund to the foreign exchange window at the airport and pays yet another commission to get the money converted into their currency. The bad news for the customer is that there are at least three brokers offering this service, and they are not interchangeable, so if you gather forms from all of them, plus some independent merchants forms, you could be standing in 4 or more lines at the airport to get your refunds, then stand in the currency exchange line. There has been some relief to this in the provision that if you pay by credit card, the merchant could have you fill out the forms, and deduct the tax right at the store and be done with it, and in this case, if the merchant does not get your form back within a certain time period they can charge your card for the tax due using the authorization form you signed.

Then there is the newest form free system, in this scheme you get a plastic card at your first merchant, and as you shop at participating stores they swipe your card through the cash register and the computer will keep a running tally (and even print tickets showing the tally). Then when you get to the airport you swipe your card through a self serve kiosk at the airport, then swipe a credit card and the system will process your refund electronically and debit your credit card. (There is a provision to have the system mail you a check, of you don't want to give up your credit card number) Jerry mentioned that the largest store here, a branch of Blarney Wollen Mills uses this new high tech solution, and that when we look at their price tags we will see two prices: Regular and Duty Free, we will be paying the Duty Free price, when all is said and done. He said just mention you are with Pentecost Tours, he has pre-registered us and that way we shouldn't have to show passports or anything like that.

There was some grumbling in the group about why Jerry didn't mention this to us before the stop at the marble company where some people made some significant purchases. If I heard correctly, Jerry responded to at least one person that in the case of the marble company they quietly charge tax free prices with the assurance you are on a tour group and will thus be exporting the merchandise. In other ways your tour leader becomes your sponsor while in Ireland, and with that you don't have to leave your passports at the front desk of a hotel as you would had you booked your own arrangements. Apparently, hotels in Europe are required to hold the passports and report to the authorities about any aliens, authorized or otherwise, staying at their hotel. Being on a tour exempts you from this, although a form I filled out in my initial packet indicated it would be provided to tour agents, I suppose that means all the registrations were taken care of before we arrived.

We received a return time of two hours, Jerry mentioned the recommended eating is in a restaurant on the upper floor of Blarney Woolen Mills, which is also a souvenir super store. Jerry encouraged, if you see something you really like, buy it now as you may not see it again, and we can't come back. He balanced this with the advice that it may not be worth the hassle to try to get he tax refund back on a €5 sale, but if you take advantage of a store like this and bundle all your small items into one large bundle the merchant will be more willing to work with you. So we left the bus and stepped out into the rain. The bus parked behind one store, but Jerry showed us the way to Blarney Wollen Mills. When we entered the store, the first order of business was the comfort stop. We followed the signs in the store and when we arrived at the back corner of the shop, we found out there was only a women's restroom on the sales floor, but both were available up in the restaurant. We went up to the restaurant level, took care of business, and then I asked Bob, "Shop or eat first?" We decided on the shopping and thus returned to the sales floor.

This is like a department store, and it has departments ranging all the way from the "Tacky Souvenir Department" (not really called that, but you know what I mean) all the way up to rooms dedicated to Waterford Crystal, fine china and name brand weavers. Guinness even has a room with Guinness souvenir products including miniature bottles of Guinness. We did spend some time in the Music and Movies department where they have travel DVD's. We asked the department clerk if their DVD's were suitable for use in the United States as the packaging was silent on the point, except that they are region 0 DVD's . The clerk assured us they were suitable, so I bought an overview DVD that covered all of Ireland, a second DVD that is a music DVD with traditional Irish music over scenes from Ireland, then I headed to the "Tacky Souvenir Department:" where I bought an Irish and European flag refrigerator magnet. They had one with both Irish and American flags but I decided to go for the all Europe look. I also bought some leprechaun magnets and ink pens to give away. Then I saw the stuffed animals, and I saw a stuffed leprechaun that plays "When Irish Eyes are Smiling" when you squeeze his hand. That also went into my cart. They really weren't carts the way we think of carts they actually look more like the small hand baskets you get in groceries, except they also have wheels on them, and a long folding handle at one end. You can carry it with one handle, or roll it with antoher, your choice. I thought that was a rather cool idea. I then hauled all this stuff up to the register, and indicated I was with Pentecost Tours. She issued me a tax free card, rang up my purchases, and I can report my Mastercard from back home worked just fine. (I had called the bank to inform them of my travel plans) A review of the receipt reveals that just under €60 was collected from me, and that price includes the tax, I was then asked if I wanted to conduct the sale in dollars or Euros, and since their exchange was better than what I had seen so far, transacted in dollars, so it came in at just under $90, I was also given a ticket showing that I had accumulated just under €7 in my tax refund account, which is "The total VAT tax collected less an administration fee" I was also provided with a brochure about the tax free scheme and instructions for submitting my claim for a refund. With the major souvenir run of the trip out of the way, it was time to go upstairs and eat.

When we got to the top of the stairs, we explored our options, to the right we had a sandwich shop, and to the left the cafeteria. We each had the same thing, a Coke, bread, and some Irish Stew. In this case they took a large bowl and filled it most of the way with the stew, then they topped it with three large scoops of mashed potatoes. This meal ran us the usual €12 and then we headed into the dining room to get a table. Well it wasn't actually a large dining room as it had a huge empty space in the middle of it that was open to the store below. In fact after two laps of the circular ring of the dining room, we were still searching for a table. It was about this time that another family, one that was not on our tour, offered to share a table with us. They weren't very talkative , but we appreciated the seats to sit down. I will also say the Irish Stew was quite tasty with huge hunks of meat that needed to be cut up, the sauce had a nice flavor and the whole thing was nice and filling.

After lunch we walked back outside, and unfortunately it was still raining, however we joined up with the rest of the group that was starting to congregate in a sheltered breezeway. I did note the village map, the British style phone box, and was able to grab some photos of Bunratty Castle proudly flying its Irish flag, as well as the infamous Durty Nellies Pub. I also spotted an American flag in the cluster welcoming us to Bunratty. After the group had reassembled we took the very short drive, really just from one end of the parking lot to the other, to Bunratty Folk Park.

On the way to Bunratty Folk Park, Jerry mentioned the rain, and the fact it was getting even harder than it was when he last saw us when he dropped us off at the Village .Our original plan had called for a 2 hour stop at the Folk Park. Digging into his experiences with past tours we suggested we return to the bus in an hour and we'll see how it goes from there. He did offer this time saving suggestion, since we are now booked in to the castle for the Medieval Banquet, we could safely skip the castle as we were touring the Folk Park as we would get a tour of the castle with the dinner.

We started to head into the folk park, and were directed into the first door on the left which leads to a reception area with a gift shop, ticket sales, and the admission gate. Jerry went ahead of us to the admission gates and using his influence as tour leader we were able to enter the Folk Park without tickets. On the way in we received a park guide and then headed out the back door of the reception building onto the main path.