Social media thread on American equivalent of Irish counties proves divisive

Darragh Murphy

This was always going to inspire fierce debate.

When a prominent journalist based in the United States came to the conclusion that Kerry reminded her a bit of Texas, the inevitable was going to happen.

Rhona Tarrant is the US editor of Storyful and having struggled to properly articulate what Kerry is like to her American friends, she decided to start describing it as “the Texas of Ireland.”

Her reasoning for this assessment was both places’ obsession with their respective forms of football, the rural nature of the areas and the assertion that residents of both Kerry and Texas have “an innate sense of superiority.”

I've started to describe Kerry as the Texas of Ireland to my American friends to help bridge the culture divide (rural, obsessed with football, everyone has an innate sense of superiority)

Dublin is New York. Cork is Boston. Limerick is Detroit. I'm working on the others.

— Rhona Tarrant (@RhonaTarrant) February 23, 2020

After figuring Kerry out, Rhona went on to suggest that Dublin’s American equivalent is New York, Cork’s is Boston and Limerick’s is Detroit.

She then concluded that Kildare would be Connecticut and Galway would be Washington State.

That’s when her followers started to have their say, as you can see below.

The Aran Islands are Hawaii. Achill is Colorado. Howth is definitely The Hamptons. Carrick on Shannon is Atlantic City.

And for the record, Limerick/Detroit = wonderful, creative, great sports, always reinventing, on the water, and both had unfair reputations they didn’t deserve

— Rhona Tarrant (@RhonaTarrant) February 24, 2020

As you might expect, the thread sparked some passionate discussion about improvements on Rhona’s initial thoughts.

We’ve compiled some of the most interesting responses to Rhona’s thread; which include comparisons between Waterford and California, Meath and New Jersey, and Longford and Alabama.