right, obviously I don't have a whole lot of say in picking a venue from a paddling perspective, but I think it's safe to say we should aim for the west coast, for the novelty, for surf, and for mountains and hence rivers.
I like the present setup where there is really only one trip per county, so Clare and Sligo are out. Achill in August is declining but Mayo is still kind of 'done'. Likewise, everybody is in Galway frequently. While Galway or Mayo could work, for the sake of something different we should look at Kerry, West Cork, or Donegal (although obviously it wouldn't be the end of the world to do the same county twice in a year).
Attendance at Kerry this year consisted of people from Dublin (from where it's much of a muchness where on the west coast you go), Waterford, Cork, Limerick, Galway, etc (i.e. the southwest). While we could easily get to Donegal, I can't imagine Cork or Waterford being too keen on this idea.
In that case, the venue should be in West Cork or Kerry.
I agree that house prices are rising in Rossbeigh, although pints dropped this year by a fair bit (but maybe that was just the temporary change of management). Still, €100 for 7 nights (which is what I paid for an ice box) is cheaper than any hostel, so we can't complain that much.
The one very good thing Rossbeigh has going for it is the Ross Inn. It's a big pub in the middle of nowhere, which means we can fill it, we can be the only ones there, and we don't go anywhere else. If we were to be in a town, even a small town with just 2 or 3 pubs, we'd get split up from each other and we wouldn't have the run of the place so much as we do. It'd be more like Colours is, for example.
The key features of a good new year location would be:
west coast
accessible to dublin&munster people
near a surf beach
with rivers nearby
with many houses in close proximity to each other
and a big pub that's not in a town
I've spoken to many people about moving Kerry over the past two or three weeks and while everybody has an opinion about Rossbeigh, nobody has suggested an alternative.
I think Spring Break this year should consist of a scouting road trip for possible new venues. We can pick some likely candidates with the help of an OS map, and then tour up the coast checking them out (yeah, I know it's kinda against the rules to plan spring break, but meh). Would anybody be up for that? Some paddlers to check out the local rivers, some social members to check out the local pubs, and one big messy fact-finding mission in march or april.