3 Things Ireland Has That Maine Needs to Borrow

Alright CYY freaks, as many of you know, I'm freshly back from an awesome vacation in Ireland. I loved every minute of it, from the days spent wandering around the beautiful countryside to the nights spent pickling my brain in Guinness, In coming back to Portland, here are three things that I find myself missing about the city of Dublin, and Ireland in general that I think Portland could benefit from.

1) A Musical Bridge

This particular bridge in Dublin is meant to look like the Harp of Brian Boru, made famous, of course, by the bar on Center St. Only kidding - Brian Boru was king of Ireland from 1002-1014. On St. Patrick's Day, the city fires water at the "strings" on the bridge, and can actually make music with it. Cool, huh?

Okay, while this sounds expensive and ridiculous, hear me out on this one. How cool would it be to put one of these babies over Casco Bay? On the 4th of July, we could fire that baby up and play the national anthem!

2) Oceanside Castles

With the recent boom in ocean-view real estate in the Portland area, I'm surprised we haven't seen any rich eccentrics actually try this one yet. Ireland has castles like we have Starbucks, and only the luckiest ones get to overlook the ocean like this one on the Cliffs of Moher on Ireland's west coast. The small tower seen in the picture has been converted into a tourist office, but imagine setting that up as a sweet bachelor pad.

3) Movie Sets

While Portland would have to woo Hollywood and get film crews over here to actually make this happen, I really do wish we could. Eagle eyed readers will recognize this spot, the Dark Hedges outside of Belfast in Northern Ireland, as the King's Road from Game of Thrones. While not a massive enthusiast of the show myself, the friend I was traveling with nearly had a heart attach being on location for his favorite show. Imagine having our local landmarks immortalized in a TV show you love! I for one would love to see Portland used to film more than that one amazingly lame episode of Finding Bigfoot. (Spoiler Alert: the team goes not to Acadia, not to Baxter, but BRADBURY MOUNTAIN to hunt for 'squatch. My facepalm is still echoing through the stratosphere.)

There are SO many more things about Ireland that I think we could make use of over here, but those are the three that pop out to me at the moment. Do you have anything you'd like to see over here that's common in Europe? Let me know in the comments!