I discovered yet another humorist, and coincidentally, a traveling Irishman. Pete, a British journalist, embarks on a journey to the land of his maternal relatives. The premise of his book is to visit every pub that bears his name, all while seeking familial connections along the way. The stories he gathers are truly priceless. One, in particular, is about a deposed head of the clan who now lives as an ex-pat in Morocco. Maybe it was because I was familiar with some of the towns he visited. Or perhaps it was the connection he felt to the Emerald Isle, which I also share. Or maybe it was simply his great writing. Whatever the reason, I thoroughly enjoyed this book and couldn't wait to buy the next in the series.

Throughout the book, there are many unfamiliar words. For example, on page 9, there is the word "boreen," which means a narrow country road. On page 10, "angelus" is a Catholic devotion commemorating the Incarnation. "Bodhrans," on page 15, are shallow one-sided Irish drums typically played with a short two-headed drumstick. The list goes on, with words like "ordure" (dung), "chiropody" (another term for podiatry), and "gurning" (to make a grotesque face).

Despite the presence of these unfamiliar words, the book is still highly engaging. The author's writing style is vivid and humorous, making it a pleasure to read. He brings the characters and the places to life, making the reader feel as if they are right there with him on his journey. Whether it's the description of a small Irish town or a hilarious encounter in a pub, Pete's writing always manages to entertain.

If you're looking for a lighthearted and entertaining read, I highly recommend this book. It's a great way to escape into the world of a traveling Irishman and experience the joys and challenges of his journey. And who knows, maybe you'll even learn a few new words along the way.

I finally gave up on it about halfway through.

There were indeed lots of funny parts within the text, and I truly enjoyed reading those. However, I'd simply had enough of the "Tourism is horrible, except when I'm the tourist" attitude. Maybe I'm a bit biased because I hold a degree in tourism. But I'm just so tired of people (not only this author) who constantly complain about how tourism has allegedly ruined the supposedly-untouched place they once loved to visit. NEWS FLASH: YOU ARE A TOURIST, TOO. What gives you the right to travel there and not others?

Moreover, there was also a significant amount of vitriol specifically directed at American tourists. How truly original. After more than a year of picking up the book and thinking, "Man, do I really have this much left to read?" I finally took Nick Hornby's advice and just stopped. It felt like a relief to put it aside and move on to something else that wouldn't frustrate me with such one-sided views.

Perhaps if the author had taken a more balanced approach or considered the positive aspects of tourism as well, I might have been more inclined to continue reading. But as it was, I couldn't bring myself to endure it any longer.

The barman-shopkeeper was in his sixties and wearing a cardigan.

And the story continues. It's a hilarious account of Pete McCarthy's physical and spiritual journey through the West of Ireland. I absolutely adored it. I feel my words can't fully capture its essence, so let him speak a bit more:

"‘Specially grown for flavour’, claim the supermarket’s Dutch tomatoes. Well, what other reason is there for growing tomatoes? Speed? Comfort? An ability to glow in the dark?"

I love this kind of humour. Then, a strange thought occurred to me halfway through the book. I felt as if I was traveling with him when it suddenly dawned on me that he was no longer alive. This thought kept resurfacing. How can I accompany him on his journey when he's not on this earth anymore? Does it bring any comfort to his loved ones? Do they feel his presence again when they read his book(s)? Or perhaps his absence is even more painful.

Then, I completely forgot he wasn't alive, just as he started contemplating his own mortality. (I guess that makes sense though, dead people usually don't think about it much. Or maybe they do. Anyway.)

"[T]he crucial secret of human happiness: that it’s better to do a few things slowly, than a lot of things fast."

The book became more serious but it didn't spoil it at all. On the contrary, it made it better, special. It's more than just a funny guide. I guess the true talent lies in entertaining the reader, not taking oneself too seriously, looking at everything with a great sense of humour while still acknowledging what is serious. It's even more powerful that way: when the funny guy turns solemn, you know it's really important.

A final piece of advice from Pete McCarthy:

"If life is a book, then read it while you can. Don’t save up any pages for later, because there might not be one."

You can find a bit longer review here: https://blueisthenewpink.wordpress.co...

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It's a highly recommended, very entertaining guide to the west of Ireland and its people (not just the Irish). Along the way, we search for our place in the world together with him. It was great traveling with him. I'm sorry he'll never write about that Northern Ireland again.

A mildly amusing travelogue unfolds as Pete McCarthy embarks on a journey through the west of Ireland, commencing from Cork and concluding in Donegal. His quest is to determine whether his Irish roots or his English home holds the key to defining him. Along the way, he coins the rather interesting maxim, "Never go past a bar with your name on it," which he employs extensively in his so-called "research."

The book holds particular interest for us as we are即将踏上前往爱尔兰的旅程, planning a similar route. However, we will be skipping the rather bizarre and masochistic barefoot St. Patrick's Purgatory Pilgrimage! In fact, we will be staying quite near Castletownbere on the Beara Peninsula, where the titular bar is allegedly still operational.

Of course, it must be noted that the Ireland of 2024 is likely to be somewhat different from the pre-Financial Crisis Celtic Tiger that is documented within these pages. Nevertheless, the essence of Ireland's charm and beauty surely remains, waiting to be discovered and experienced anew.

This was sold to me as ‘Bryson without the boring bits’. However, I would argue that there’s still a fair few boring bits. But that’s fine with me as McCarthy also has the necessary wit to make up for them.

McCarthy's work has its own charm. Although it may not be completely free of dull moments, those are outweighed by his sharp sense of humor and engaging writing style. His ability to bring a story to life and make the reader laugh is truly remarkable.

Unfortunately, Pete McCarthy has passed away. RIP Pete McCarthy. His contributions to the literary world will be missed, but his work will continue to entertain and inspire readers for years to come.

We should remember him for his unique voice and the joy he brought to our lives through his writing. May he rest in peace.

What a disappointment!!

The build-up to this book was huge.

It was described as "a wonderfully funny journey", "unrelentingly funny", and "Bryson without the boring bits".

Well, I like Bryson, so I expected to enjoy this.

But those expectations were soon dashed.

Okay, I guess it was amusing enough at times.

But it was certainly not the hysterically funny read that the blurb would have me believe.

I only managed the occasional mental wry smile (though maybe my lips did twitch once).

Which sadly means that according to one of the comments, there's every chance I'm dead.

This book didn't live up to the hype for me.

It had some moments of humor, but not enough to make it a truly great read.

I was really looking forward to it, but in the end, I was left feeling a bit let down.

Maybe others will have a different experience, but for me, this was a disappointment.

McCarthy's Bar by Pete McCarthy is a hilarious travelogue mainly set in the modern Republic of Ireland. The first half is almost entirely filled with humor, while his descriptions of breathtakingly beautiful landscapes come in the second half.

The Eighth Rule of Travel states: Never Pass a Bar That Has Your Name On It. Pete visits every bar named McCarthy's, whether in County Mayo, Ireland, or Boston, Massachusetts, or Budapest, Hungary.

February is the worst month in England, when the urge to hibernate or escape is nearly uncontrollable, and deep malice towards Australians and their weather wells up whenever cricket highlights appear on TV. Pete dreads spending another St. Patrick's night in the Home Counties of England. Each 17 March brings to a head the English middle classes' inability to deal with the Irish Problem, as Ireland is seen as a problem simply because it exists.

As his plane lands in Ireland, he feels as if he's come home, even though he's never actually lived there. He wonders if it's possible to have a genetic memory of a place where your ancestors lived but you haven't. Or is he just a sentimental fool, his judgment clouded by nostalgia, Guinness, and the romance of the diaspora?

He follows the First Rule of Travel: On Arrival, Buy a Local Paper and Go for a Drink. The court cases, property prices, and obituaries in the paper will tell you more than any guidebook, and the drink will help you understand things that are otherwise beyond your comprehension.

It's quite remarkable how often Van Morrison is playing when you walk into an Irish pub. A packet of 'plain' crisps in Ireland is actually cheese and onion flavored. Because of the time and care taken in pouring a pint of stout, the trick in Ireland is to order your next one five minutes before the previous one is almost finished.

Sometimes it's good to get creatively lost. A sense of purpose has its place while traveling, but for the most part, it's highly overrated. When asking for directions in Ireland, it's important to know the correct way. You don't abruptly say, 'Excuse me! Could you tell me the way to...?' Instead, you turn the encounter into a social occasion, like when two strangers meet and chat at a party or wedding reception. A tangential preamble is essential, such as, 'Ah, that's a great hedge you're trimming,' or 'Sure, it's a glorious day,' even if it isn't. Then, a lot of personal information will be exchanged, and in the process, the directions you're seeking may or may not emerge. Some of the best conversations in Ireland can happen this way.

He banters with a local about crops and such for a while until he senses the right moment to ask for directions. She tells him she doesn't live around there but points to her white farmhouse across the fields on a hillside about a mile away. It's important to have a Plan B, especially when there's no Plan A.

The barman half pours his pint of Guinness, then lets it stand for three minutes in the traditional way. This allows the stout to settle and also gives the barman a chance to ask him who he is, where he's from, and why he's here. The other customers listen and nod. Then, he fills the pint, smooths off the head with a table knife with a parchment-colored handle, and waits for him to take the first sip.

He tries to find Castlefreke because of its interesting name and the ruined old Gothic house, and because you're supposed to be able to walk through the woods to the beach. But it's too elusive for him. He does manage to find Castlefreke post office, which is clearly marked in the middle of the picturesque village of Rathbarry.

His earliest memories of traveling to Ireland are of the Glengariff, which sailed from Liverpool Pier Head to Cork. It wasn't always a drive-on car ferry with reclining pullman seats, discos, and tax-free perfume. This was a cattle boat, with berths for thirty or forty passengers as a side business. He remembers his father taking him below decks to see the animals in a stable with straw. The crossing would get rough in the early hours of the morning as they rounded the southeast corner of Ireland and the swell of the Atlantic hit the Irish Sea.

The Irish national pub dish, The Toasted Special, is a sandwich of ham, cheese, onion, tomato, and anything else that's in the fridge or on the worktop, all served at a very hot temperature. The road west has the vast expanse of Bantry Bay to the left and the stark, rugged mountains of biblical proportions on the right. Sheep seem to be attached to unlikely precipices as if by Velcro. Radiant shafts of sunlight pierce the dark cloud cover and hit the water with a metallic flash, as if to prove there is a Creator with a taste for random and terrifying beauty.

Ireland simply doesn't have the picturesque old housing stock that can be found in England and France because for many centuries, until very recently, it was a desperately poor country. Those houses were never built. The census of 1842 records that eighty-four percent of the population of the Beara Peninsula at that time were living in one-room mud huts.

He sees one of the most spectacular stretches of coastline he's ever seen. Five craggy headlands stand in a line between him and Castletownbere. The weather changes rapidly, from blue sky to yellow mist, then to an enormous broad rainbow as it hits the land for the first time since leaving America. The views looking north across the Kenmare Estuary to the mountains of the Ring of Kerry are sensational, especially when the weather is clear enough to see them.

At one point, he follows a waterfall up the hillside through ferns and thick woods. At the top, he stops to gaze out over the mountains, lakes, and islands of Kerry but instead finds himself gazing in wonder at the beautiful emerald moss covering the rocks at his feet. At home, he tries to get rid of the moss in the garden, but here he realizes how beautiful it is. The solitude and great beauty are making him soft in the head, so he decides to go somewhere with lots of people and buildings to get back in touch with his uncaring, cynical side. He hits the road for Killarney.

He loves ruined abbeys and bits of old stone, preferably several times a day. The weather has turned into a warm, sunny day with occasional showers, or a showery, overcast day with occasional sunshine, depending on your perspective. The short journey from Dingle via Ventry Harbour to Slea Head and Dunquin is the most affecting landscape he's ever seen in his life. Tiny enclosed fields run down the dramatic mountainsides and are farmed to the cliff edge, giving way to a dazzlingly multi-hued Atlantic. Hedges are scarlet with fuchsia. In several places, just above the road, are the beehive huts, the remains of the stone shelters occupied by monks and hermits in the early days of Christianity.

As the sun disappears briefly behind a cloud and then reappears, there is a dazzling display of light on the water. Great Blasket Island seems to come in and out of focus as twinkling sunbeams bounce off the waves, surrounding it with shimmering haloes. It's so clear that, far to the south, the Skelligs are visible, shimmering on the horizon like an illusion. How often in your life are you confronted by a landscape so beautiful that it makes you want to weep?

Bunratty is one of the top tourist destinations in the country. It's just a few miles from Shannon airport, which means that coachloads of people who were in the Scottish Highlands yesterday and have to be in a Belgian chocolate factory tomorrow can come and experience the real Ireland for a day without having to waste time driving around looking for it.

There's a roundabout of such extreme ugliness on the Galway ring road that it would have been refused planning permission in New Jersey. You'd never imagine you were within a mile of one of the loveliest city centers in the country. He never used to be sure where the sweaters came from because he never really knew if Aran was off Scotland, Northern Ireland, or the west of Ireland. In fact, there are Aran Islands in all three places, including a cluster off Galway: Inishmaan, Inisheer, and the largest, Inishmore, which is the site of many early Christian and pre-Christian antiquities.

The view from Dun Aengus (a ring fort dating from 1100 B.C.) is breathtaking. He hadn't expected such a view. Looking back in the direction he came, you can see both sides of the island and the ocean on either side. To his left is Galway and Connemara, to his right are the Cliffs of Moher, twenty miles away on mainland County Clare. Far, far to the south is more coastline, mountains, and finally, on the distant, crystal-clear horizon, one massive mountain: Mount Brandon, seventy-five miles away in the Dingle Peninsula. Pete goes on a pilgrimage to St. Patrick's Purgatory on Lough Derg. In 1200, Peter of Cornwall, a regular visitor, wrote: 'Beware. No one leaves Lough Derg without some loss of mind.' Pete details his experience blow-by-blow.

I really enjoyed this book.

It was such a captivating read that I couldn't put it down.

The story was engaging from start to finish, filled with interesting characters and a plot that kept me on the edge of my seat.

The author's writing style was also very enjoyable, making it easy to follow along and understand the story.

I would 100% recommend this book to anyone who loves a good read.

Whether you're into mystery, romance, or adventure, this book has something for everyone.

It's definitely one of the best books I've read in a long time, and I'm sure you'll love it too.

So don't hesitate, go out and get a copy of this book today!

Another book which I re-read each year is a truly remarkable one.

It features an 'equal opportunities' gang of urchins on the ferry journey over to Ireland. Their presence adds a touch of mischief and charm to the story.

There is also a fearsome B&B landlady who seems to have a unique personality.

The author mentions the price of Singapore noodles in every town in Ireland, which gives a sense of the local culture and economy.

Mountain-dwelling new-age travellers are another interesting element, bringing a different perspective to the narrative.

And let's not forget the battered Volvo car with a crow shoved up the exhaust pipe. This strange and comical image sticks in the mind.

Only an Englishman of Irish extraction could view and understand the Irish with such objective empathy. It is this ability that makes the book so special.

I love it, love it, love it. In fact, I'm going to pick it off the shelf right now and embark on another wonderful reading adventure.

Being in Ireland at the time of reading, I was truly impressed by this geek. His knowledge and insights were not only extremely helpful but also highly informative. He seemed to have an in-depth understanding of various subjects, which made our conversations truly engaging. Whether it was about the local culture, history, or current affairs, he could offer valuable perspectives and interesting facts. I found myself constantly learning from him and looking forward to our next discussion. His passion for sharing knowledge was contagious, and it inspired me to explore and learn more about the world around me. Overall, this geek had a significant impact on my experience in Ireland, and I will always remember the valuable time I spent with him.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book.

Pete McCarthy's wit and observations are truly remarkable. They had me laughing out loud on numerous occasions.

He has a unique talent for poking fun at people from all walks of life, and he doesn't spare himself either. In fact, he often makes himself the butt of the joke, which adds an endearing quality to his writing.

What's even more impressive is that while he is entertaining the reader with his humor, he also manages to convey something deeper. He does this in a subtle way, without making it seem like an obvious goal.

Overall, I would give this book 4.5 stars. It's a great read that combines humor and depth in a way that is both engaging and thought-provoking. I would highly recommend it to anyone looking for a good laugh and a bit of food for thought.

Whenever I find myself in need of a good, hearty laugh - a laugh that is truly human and full of warmth - I always reach for this particular book. Over the years, I have read it from cover to cover no less than six times, and yet, I still keep it within arm's reach. Just yesterday, I completed another reading of it. And I have to say, it is nothing short of brilliant - absolutely brilliant.

The book has this magical quality that never fails to bring a smile to my face and a laugh to my lips. It is filled with engaging stories, witty characters, and humorous situations that are both relatable and entertaining. Each time I read it, I discover something new and delightful, as if I am uncovering hidden treasures within its pages.

Whether I am feeling down or simply in the mood for some light-hearted entertainment, this book is my go-to choice. It has the power to transport me to another world, a world filled with laughter and joy. I highly recommend it to anyone who is looking for a good read that will make them laugh out loud.