Got the same view last week, haha!

Still pretty cool. The mist gives it "we could dump a body here" vibes

Breathtaking

The fog gives it ambience, I don't want all my hikes to look like shutterstock images

places where there’s little wood for heating

I wonder how that happened.

only a few crops for food that are subject to random blights

Not-so-fun-fact: Ireland always had plenty of crops. It's just that the English stole them all and only let them keep the potatoes. The scarcity was manufactured, and the blight wouldn't have been as devastating if the rest of the crops weren't being extracted.

The Ottomans tried sending food but the English rejected it because they thought it would make them look bad if a foreign government was helping and not them.

there’s little wood for heating

Plenty of sheep's manure for that. Or peat.

and an oppressive power next door stepping on your neck

Got no argument there, but it does result in some kickass folk tunes.

Ireland is a beautiful place with a harsh history.

Yes, yes indeed.

I don't know how true it is, but my understanding is that Ireland used to be quite well off for forests. But the English happened to them, and bit by bit, we successfully deforested 98% of the island.

This was widely considered a bad move.

Yeah, my ancestors are from Ireland and Italy. The Irish half escaped the famine and came here and procreated like it was going out of style. My family from Italy came over to escape the fascism (jokes on them). They brought with them the gabagool.

In springfield Missouri

Order a black and tan before you leave!

https://youtu.be/xzlMME_sekI?is=2R1k0QLdcPGIwJtu

And famine.

Nah that's just what capitalism wants you to think. Shrek is love. Shrek is life.

He wants to sink the ship on which his grandparents left Ireland.

Wild guess here, and I'm not super clear what a maelstrom even is but I know it involves the sea, and those are the Cliffs of Moher in West Ireland. Perhaps the maelstrom has something to do with their origins?

EDIT: well silly me, those cliffs are millions of years old so the date here wouldn't line up. Idk then, perhaps that's when the family immigrated and the hypothetical maelstrom is intended to mess with the timeline, meaning OP is saved from Missouri.

EDIT2: Fatal mistake, OP - the maelstrom did not deal an effective enough blow, but you did fuck with the timeline just enough that you are now sentenced to life in Louisiana! Better luck next time!

On the night of 18 June 1875 a fire broke out in a whiskey storehouse in the Liberties area of Dublin. The escaped whiskey formed a burning river six inches (15 cm) deep that is said to have flowed as far as the Coombe, destroying 35 houses and killing several pigs. While there were no human fatalities as a direct result of the fire or flood, 13 people died of alcohol poisoning after drinking from the stream of whiskey, which was of undiluted cask strength.

Funny personal note, I can barely drink three bears without getting sick but I can drink whisky like a fish.

You been to St. Louis?

And took forever to get to the beach.