Taken Summer '94--Dublin, Capital of
Eire.  The city of my birth. A modern, bustling city in many ways, complete with McDonalds and Virgin Megastores selling condoms at front counter, and yet, even today, one can find oneself at dead stop on a main street on the outskirts of the city, held up by a herd of sheep--or caught behind a slow-moving  horse or tractor pulling a cart filled with family of tinkers (Irish gypsies who roam Ireland, usually in modern camping vehicles now.  I can remember when I was a teenager in the early 1970's, the majority of tinkers still traveled in primitive sorts of "covered wagons--" brightly painted caravans drawn by one or two horses--perhaps with a horse of two in tow behind them.  Nowadays it seems you will find only tourists making use of this outmoded means of traveling round Eire! (as you might imagine, one's progress in a horse-drawn covered wagon can be quite slow.  It can take days to complete a journey which today, by car, would take just a few hours.