After more than a year of reading up on Ireland, taking a trip there, and attending more than one Ireland tourism presentation, I am still having a hard time differentiating one region of the country from another (except, of course, the clear political division between the Republic and Northern Ireland). Maybe it's because I didn't grow up reading about Ireland the way I read about England and Scotland, but in the latter I find it fairly easy to get a feel for, say, Cornwall versus the West Country versus the Salisbury Plain.
For Ireland I don't get that sense of distinction from one region to another. There's so much hype: "Oh, you MUST see the so-and-so"; "No visit to Ireland is complete without..."; "So-and-so is one of the most beautiful parts of Ireland"; "Here you will revel in Irish culture" and on and on.
Can anyone suggest ways to get a fix on what sets a given region apart from another?