Eccentric guide to a land of contradictions

Vitali’s Ireland. By Vitali Vitaliev, Gill & Macmillan, €18.90

Hotels like nothing better than glowing press cuttings on their walls. I don’t know if the Woodenbridge Hotel in Wicklow has some wall space devoted to John Murray’s 1912 Handbook for Travellers in Ireland, which describes the hotel as ‘‘excellent’’.

If it has, it is unlikely to take it down - or the Victorian poster for the hotel (‘First Class. Best Views in Ireland. ...