Cronin's Sheebeen

Cronin's Sheebeen is a thatched roof pub about a mile from Westport. The Guiness is cold, the atmosphere warm, and the mussels served in a garlic cream sauce. I ate and drank and read The Ghost Light, Joseph O'Connor's new novel based on an affair between the Irish playwright John Millington Synge (The Playboy of the Western World, Riders to the Sea) and the actress Molly Allgood (sister of Sara Allgood, known best to American audiences for her portrayal of Beth Morgan in How Green Was My Valley). Though Ghost is overwritten at times, its dialogue is impeccable and the view into a time when actors and playwrights were disdained as well as revered never ceases to fascinate.

Louisburgh Days and Westport Nights

Yesterday, we drove the back roads near the town of Louisburgh, then finished up in Westport with a drink outside The Clock pub and dinner at Sage, Westport's best restaurant. I had aubergine parmigiana; a homemade ravioli with spinach, ricotta, and marinara; and fogata, dessert with ice cream, espresso, and biscotti. T. countered with a chicken liver pate with crostini and a cherry preserve; sage ravioli with Italian sausage and a parmesan white sauce; and a dessert of vanilla ice cream, bananas, chopped toasted almonds, and whipping cream.

What's wrong (or right) with this last picture? Those are children playing at the water's edge, aged about 4-10. There isn't an adult in sight, whereas in America there would be a perimeter of grownups no further than ten feet away. Are Irish parents less alert or too blase? Or do they not participate in the fearfulness that characterizes so much of American child-rearing...

He's not worth it. No one is. You wonder how a sophisticated, educated person could come to this...

Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight writes that Alaska's Lisa Murkowski is "between the fourth and eighth most liberal Republican in the Senate." Isn't that like saying that someone is between the fourth and eighth most tolerant member of the Ku Klux Klan? If you have any thoughts about what else being the fourth to eighth most liberal Republican is like, comment away!

Westport: Bridge Street and the Mall

Founded in 1758, Westport is one of the first planned communities in Europe. Public life revolved around two areas: The Quay and the rectangular business district anchored at one end by the mall and Catholic Church on the Carrowbeg River shown above.

Bridge Street, which intersects with the river via an arched bridged like the one in the distance, features many of Westport's shops, pubs, and restaurants: It's the center of activity in the town. Here's the foot of Bridge Street, as seen from the river:


The top of Bridge Street from the Clock Tower (show first):




To be continued!...

That blood, it never burned in her veins...

Newport in bloom (find the skulls!)...

Even the geese dance in NOLA!...

Baby sitting and Nancy Drew...

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

The Ten Best Irish Pubs in New England...

Five Irish novels not by James Joyce or Edna O'Brien that everyone should read:

The Secret Scriptures, Sebastian Barry

How Many Miles To Babylon?, Jennifer Johnston

Inishowen, Joseph O'Connor

Strumpet City, James Plunkett

The Story Of Lucy Gault, William Trevor

ZenYenta reminds us that on St. Patrick's Day, everyone is Irish...

...including in Lakewood, Ohio, Mouse reminds us...

Helen Wheels regales  regales us with Irish and Catholic humor...

In words and pictures, Premium T. tells the story of her Irish roots...

The Red Sox go green for St. Patrick's Day...

Kenneth the Page sues Bobby Jindal...

The Chieftains join a session at Matt Molloy's Pub in Westport, County Mayo:

Another session at Matt Molloy's. I believe that is him playing flute:

Inishowen

Wednesday, we circled the Inishowen Peninsula of County Donegal. Inishowen is, to say the least, a heart-stopping place of staggering beauty. Our route took us to Malin Head, the northernmost point in Ireland. It also took us to Farren's, the northernmost pub in Ireland. (Things can get pretty wild in Farren's, although it was quiet enough when we were there.)

Our day started on the small ferry -- from which we watched a pair of horsemen take their mounts through the water to a gallop along the beach -- that transported us and the reliable Nissan across Lough Swilley to the town of Buncrana. From there, we proceeded north to Fort Duncree, where we hiked up to the redoubt overlooking the lough. Big surprise: Splendid views abounded. From Fort Duncree, we proceeded through the Mamore Pass to Dooagh, where we visited the Irish Famine Village. (Premium T. describes the village, which was not what we expected, here.) Then it was on to Malin Head and Farren's, where a young publican greeted us with a cheery Donegal "How are yiz?"

He took about three seconds to identify us as Americans and, after ascertaining where we were from, asked us if Seattle was near Oregon. Notably, he pronounced "Oregon" correctly -- it's "Ore-gun", not "Ore-gone" -- something almost no one outside of the Pacific Northwest manages. It turns out that just about everyone in Malin Head can pronounce the name correctly because one of local lads has a relative in Portland. Which explains the local man's nickname of "Oregon," although the publican admitted that he at first thought the nickname was "Organ." (As in, he said, a heart or a lung, but one wonders whether that's really what he thought.) We wound up chatting at length with a couple from Dublin who like Mediterraneo, our favorite Westport restaurant. Premium T. captured the ambience on film here.

From Farren's, we consulted our ordnance map and decided to track down a stone circle a few miles away. (BTW, the Ordnance Survey Ireland maps are indispensable for navigating the Byzantine back roads of this country. Among other things, they show the precise location of virtually every antiquity in Ireland.) Premium T. has become exceptionally adept at reading these necessary but tricky tools, and she got us to the site -- a cow pasture, as it happened -- without a hiccup.

We'd been out for a while by then, and from the stone circle cut straight down the peninsula, then over to Buncrana in time for the last ferry. This was our second trip to Donegal, but it won't be the last...

What? WHAT?  Next thing you know, the French will be drinking Australian wine and the Russians will be downing Scotch vodka...

Sisters

We saw these two happily indulging in ice creams cones outside of a Westport shop. After I ascertained that their mother was nearby -- in the shop where, they assured me -- they were not allowed to go with the ice cream, I obtained permission to take their picture. The big sister hastily wiped her face clean. The t-shirt on the younger one reads "Trouble But Lovable". Indeed.

Westport Pubs (II)

We're off to Donegal for a few days. Even though Donegal is part of the Republic of Ireland, it's in the province of Ulster, along with counties Cavan and Monaghan. (Ulster's six other counties comprise Northern Ireland.) Donegal has the shortest border with the Republic along a thin strip of Sligo. It's beautiful and remote (the northernmost part of Ireland is there, in the peninsula of Inishowen); Irish remains the primary language among many of its older residents, especially the further north one penetrates. We visited the lower part last year; this summer, we're pressing up higher.

In the meantime, here are some more of Westport's 37 pubs.

Incredibly, Nolan's is closed with no sign of reopening any time soon. We suspect that the building is cursed.

Gigs and Frolics

Today is the first full day of the Westport Folk & Bluegrass Festival. The Mayo News promises that it will be "choc-a-block with gigs and frolics." Who could miss that? Who would want to? A Yankees fan or a Republican maybe, but even they have hearts and souls (even if those aren't often apparent).

The Mayo News has this interesting column by Fr Kevin Hegarty about the fascist movement in Ireland back in the Thirties. Serendipitously enough, the column coincided with my reading a novel set in part during those times, in which the fascist movement played a small role. The book (The Secret Scripture, by Sebastian Barry) tells the story of a 100-year old woman attempting to recall the events of her life and the way they intersected with the Ireland of the 20's-40's to land her in an insane asylum. Barry's prose can be overly lyrical at times, but he's near brilliant with the set pieces, especially the one where Roseanne recalls the perilous birth of her child. You can preview The Secret Scripture here...

Who said this in 2002: "I...know that Saddam poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States, or to his neighbors, that the Iraqi economy is in shambles, that the Iraqi military [has] a fraction of its former strength, and that in concert with the international community he can be contained until, in the way of all petty dictators, he falls away into the dustbin of history. I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a US occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences. I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of Al Qaeda."

Why, it was none other than that woefully inexperienced and unprepared Democratic party nominee for president, Barack Obama. In the current issue of The Nation, Eric Alterman explores how the MSM treats Obama as the modern day equivalent of a premature anti-Fascist. At the same time, as Alterman shows in another article, the MSM sucks up to supposed foreign policy expert John McCain -- the very same John McCain who pronounced in 2002 that he was "'very certain that this military engagement [the invasion of Iraq] will not be very difficult' and, a month later, that 'success will be fairly easy.'"

Alterman  writes that "on issue after issue, and from every side of the journalistic political spectrum, a campaign of deception and distortion has helped to ensure that McCain's extreme positions and politically inspired flip-flops remain far from the consciousness of the average voter." The MSM positions the ultraconservative McCain, who faithfully toes the Bush line time and again, as "moderate" and as a "maverick," claiming that his voting record masks his real positions, the moderateness of which will become apparent once he is president. This echoes the same line they took with noted beer buddy George W. Bush and his hollow promises to be a uniter. (Alterman: "McCain's legendary diversionary walks from the path of the Republican straight-and-narrow so impressed his friends in the media that they appeared to have passed a secret law among themselves never to refer to the senior Arizona senator without also using the word "maverick." As David Brock and Paul Waldman demonstrate in their book Free Ride, the words "maverick" and "McCain" appeared within ten words of each other 2,114 times in 2000, a practice that has continued to the present at roughly the same rate.")

Alterman, one of the best media critic around, blogs daily here at Media Matters...

Jamison Foser points out the disparity in the MSM's treatments of the personal wealth of  McCain's and John Edwards.

Citizen K. Read: The Secret Scripture, Sebastian Barry

St. John's Eve

Yesterday afternoon, we drove over to Murrisk (on the other side of Westport) for short hike in the tidelands below Croagh Patrick. The trail begins at the National Famine Memorial, goes east to Murrisk Abbey, then crosses tide flats to a small island accessible when the tide is out. Rain interrupted the hike, but not before we explored the abbey and took in some fabulous views. Now, Ireland boasts so many views that you might think we'd stop noticing them, but not so. The added bonus, which I never tire of, is that so often we are the only people taking them in. That's the truly wonderful thing -- that we're taking in sights equal to the central coast California, except that there are no cars or other people. Instead of feeling like one of many observers, I feel a part of the landscape -- like I might actually belong there as opposed to being a sort of nature voyeur.







The best was yet to come, though. Early in the evening, Premium T. invited be to join her down on the cove by our house. I decided not follow her down a steep embankment and headed toward the easy access at base of the cove. I ran into our neighbor Ian, who was preparing to burn some wood scraps. Last night was St John's Eve, the one night of the year when bonfires are allowed in Ireland. (In Ireland, it is also known as Oiche Fheile Eoghain, or Bonfire Night.) It's a celebration of fertility and plenty going back to Druidic times.

Anyway, I stopped to help Ian with the bonfire, and shortly after that Meena, his wife, came out with a bottle of wine. T. walked over from the cove and little by little our other neighbors came out, including Pat with a case of beer. We wound up celebrating until midnight, taking part in a tradition going back for millenia. (Premium T. will post pictures later.)

No party in Ireland would be complete without a few stories, and Pat told this one about an elderly gentleman who had had a pint too many one night in a Westport pub. The old man left the pub, started his car, and immediately drove it into a flower bed next to the pub. When the gardai arrived, the old was still in the car with the engine running.

"You can't be drivin' your car tonight," the gardai admonished.

"Drive me car?" the old man replied. "I can't light me pipe!"

Also, Hannah and Elizabeth, 10- and 11-year old sisters from next door, told us this riddle:

Q: Why did the toilet paper roll down the hill?

A: To get to the bottom.