The second this year! Does this qualify me for some sort of tourism award?

These days you have to fight your way through the airport traffic jams in order to get to the countryside.

Never mind; as all dutiful tourists know, a holiday in Ireland offers you the unique opportunity to meet the most friendly, passionate and artistic people in the world. In other words, the Irish. That extraordinary race which has been packaged and marketed and schlepped around every available marketing outlet on the planet.

Now that Dublin has officially become the least friendly city in the world (source: an Irish American who has lived in Dublin for the past decade; yes, they do call it research), I just couldn't wait to bond with these fascinating creatures.

But Irish holidays are a funny old business. As a tourist it is kind of hard to meet Irish people. Like, the guy behind the counter at the petrol station was Russian. The young girl taking money on the Knightstown to Cahirciveen ferry was from eastern Europe. The charming man in the crowded hotel bar, who served us food so graciously, was French.

All hotel receptionists seem to be foreign . . . although the receptionists in the hotel where we finally stayed, to which we were driven by driving rain, were not.

They were terribly nice about us leaving sand all over their stairs.

This is all sounding a bit Daily Mail, which is disturbing. No one is suggesting that these hard workers be robbed of their jobs. But, in a country that has sold its people as its greatest tourist asset, doesn't this lack of Irish personnel at the frontline present the teeniest problem?

I mean, doesn't it strike anyone else as peculiar that most of the workers at the Guinness Storehouse (Ireland's premier tourist destination, see last week's paper) seem to be Italian?

We have all become too posh to work in the tourist industry. Obviously. And all Irish people, except myself and my loved ones, have become too canny to stay in Irish hotels unless our bosses are paying.

Recent statistics show a huge increase in the number of Irish people holidaying at their second homes, situated in scenic parts of Ireland with panoramic views of the Filipino cleaners.

One can only speculate as to whether this trend has anything to do with the prices. Suffice it to say that these holidaying Irish people only come in to the local town to load up with groceries at Tesco . . . that well-known Irish supermarket . . . before vanishing from public view for a fortnight. We tourists in our anoraks, with rain dripping down our necks (did I mention that we experienced some bad weather? ) can only look wistfully at the back of the retreating Volvo and wonder what might have been.

And one can only hold one's breath until the lie that holidays in Ireland will bring you into regular contact with Irish people gets around the tourism world.

How are our tourism masters going to sell Ireland then?

I think we should be told. I should also say that we had a great time on our holidays in Ireland. We came home bankrupt but happy, but that's partly our own fault for not planning more effectively.

We enjoyed meeting the Russian guy at the petrol station, who gave very clear directions to two Polish guys as to how to get on to the Cork road. We enjoyed meeting some Irish people too . . . hello, Colette, Rena and Mary who do not read the Sunday Tribune and are part of the Tipperary Peace Convention Committee; Judy who was our B&B landlady on the first night; and a lot of prosperouslooking ferry operators. We even met Fungi, an immigrant who has contributed more than anyone else to nurturing the cash cow that is tourism.

And if we want to meet any Irish people who are not from Dublin we know where to find them . . . at the airport.