And there are also tons of Irish pubs!

Therefore, all of Ireland is a ugly mass tourist place.

QED.

I don't think anyone is holding Ireland responsible for "Irish" pubs. It somehow just became a genre of bar on its own, and it's easy to do in a lazy caricatured way, suitable for someone whose chief aim in owning a bar is rooking tourists: shamrock-based logo, change the name to "O'Whoever's", and have Guinness on tap, good to go.

Then you have other places like my old hangout from 20 years ago, which had a few of the same visual signifiers of Irishness, but the owner being in fact an Irishman, he didn't feel the need to go overboard with that. Hope that place is still open and doing well.

Was going to say the same thing. There’s zero correlation between touristy spots and Spar in Ireland, unless East Wall has suddenly become a tourist hot spot without me hearing about it

Kin has really had the Sherif Street tourism industry breaking new ground

I was in Mallorca this summer. And I have shopped from Spar across Europe in the past.

The various "Spar" in Mallorca are mom & pop mini markets with 20% higher prices than the Mercadona or Lidl. Walking outside such a "Spar" one you SEE that this is not you "central-europe-1000 sqm shop" but a rip-off with a Spar label on it.

I haven't paid attention on the ATMs though. I believe that with the prevalence of Conotoxia, Revolut, and the likes, and the fact that everywhere* in Mallorca you can pay with your phone/watch, it makes carrying cash unnecessary

*and I mean flea-market that sells crap that only tourists would buy, or bread/cheese/snacks/etc.

So they just are the certain size category shops. Usually small as the retail spaces are not supermarket sized. Thus they don't get benefits from scale and end up being expensive.

The reality is that there is no big retail spaces near tourist attractions. Or those are much valuable when split up. Thus you end up with smaller stores that do not benefit as much from scale.

If you do not like the prices, just travel enough to find equivalent of Walmart...

I live in Mallorca and the amount of retailers and services that only take cash is significant, it includes:

- several Palma bus lines (if you don't have the bus card)

- the most traditional bakeries, tailors, dry cleaners and so on

- 95% of the traders in my local municipal fruit and veg market

- 95% of the traders in the largest antiques market

- many cleaners, gardeners, painters, physiotherapists, swim instructors, yoga teachers etc

In addition, many places will offer one price for cash, and another for paying with card, and we know what that's about.

I've had to relearn having cash on my person, otherwise you can't get what you need several times a week.