In USMA 8737 Karl Ruling wrote:
>>My girlfriend just got back from a week in Ireland. Since she did not
>>buy any packaged goods and did not pay much attention to the distance
>>signs on the road, her impression was that Ireland is still Imperial
>>except for temperature. She says that because she heard everyone
>>continue to use "miles", "feet" (or perhaps "yards"), "pounds" (for
>>mass), etc. She visited Limerick, Cork, and Killarney, then returned
>>home via Shannon Airport.
>
>About five years ago I was in that same area and I did a lot of driving. I
>found that road signs used either SI or colonial units, often without
>identifying which was being used. I would have to guess, based on the
>magnitude of the value reported, whether a distance was in kilometers or
>miles. The languages of the road signs were also arbitrary: some were in
>Irish while others were in English. I had an interesting time trying to
>figure out where we were going, but everywhere was beautiful!
Were those English miles or Irish miles? In 1937 I set out to bicycle from
Lisburn, just south of Belfast, to Dublin. Outside the door there was a
milestone that said "Dublin 72 miles". That seemed to be a reasonable
distance for a day on a bicycle. A few miles later there was a Royal
Automobile Club sign that said "Dublin 96 miles". That was when I learned
the difference between Irish miles and impwrial miles.
