As the eco-tourism season got under way, the confused-looking French people began to arrive.

They come to see ‘la nature’, and they insist they don’t mind about the rain or the terrible food, or the fact you can’t actually access any of this nature because it’s all owned by strapping great Cork farmers who won’t let you near it. After a few days, their faces suggest they’re getting a tad disorientated, but they don’t want to admit it.

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First there arrived a very nice couple from a town in northern France where the builder boyfriend and I had one of our most memorable holidays together.

As I served them their breakfast coffee, they asked where they could go for a walk, for they had tried in vain for days. I told them ‘beaches, that’s it’ – and most of those are inaccessible to cars and have cows grazing beside them and farmers waiting to jump out.

‘Un moment,’ I said, and went off to fetch something – a picture of the BB standing by a perfect swimming pool in front of a perfect château. Every morning in this place, we would come down to platters heaped with fresh croissants. We lazed by the pool with our little dog Cydney, and slept in a four-poster bed.

The French will not admit they are getting anything about visiting Ireland wrong

The French will not admit they are getting anything about visiting Ireland wrong

When it was time to continue south we had almost wished........

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