McCarthy's Bar: A Journey of Discovery in Ireland Read Online Free PDF

Bohonagh circle, but it’s clear she doesn’t recognise it, even though she must have lived her whole life within eight or ten miles of it, according to the complex family history she eagerly provides. But the name itself rings a bell, though she says there’s also another place that sounds similar, and it might be that. Or not. Eventually she suggests a route.
    ‘Go back a way below there, now. Go right, and right, and I think left. Do you know the Dunmanway road?’
    I nod, and smile, and only I know that I mean ‘No’.
    ‘Well, you take that. And there’s an old tumbledown wreck of a pub there, and you turn away up the hill. It’s painted yellow. Or at least it was twenty years ago.’
    Clueless, I head off politely, happy simply to put a few country miles between me and the Michael Collins birthplace. After driving for ten minutes, I round a bend, and suddenly find myself at the Michael Collins birthplace. The Geordie waves and smiles.
    I immediately implement Plan B, which in this instance is to drive at random until something happens. It’s important to have a Plan B, especially when there’s no Plan A. After a few minutes, I find myself at a T-junction I don’t think I’ve passed before, though of course I can’t be certain. And there’s a pub—no name displayed, but almost certainly called McCarthy’s. Unfortunately, it’s shut. This is a difficult concept to grasp. I’ve never found a pub closed in Ireland before, and I’m not sure how to cope. Intellectually, I realise that the whole point of travel is to introduce you to the unknown, but emotionally I’m finding it difficult to deal with. I take a swig from my bottle of Virgin Mary mineral water, and consider my situation.
    I’m lost, and the pub’s shut. It’s hard to see how things could much worse. But I’m determined not to be thwarted by these elusive stones. They have come to represent the moral high ground, and I am determined to attain it. I drive a few more miles round winding lanes, until I find a sign to Rosscarbery (‘Michael Collins birthplace—1 mile’). Then, within sight of the main road I’d left earlier in the day, my eye is caught by a bright yellow sign on a noticeboard at the entrance to a field.
    NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN THAT THE OCCUPIER OF THIS PROPERTY EXCLUDES THE DUTY OF CARE TO ALL VISITORS.
    NO UNAUTHORISED ENTRY IS ALLOWED.
    Inside the field, only about fifty yards away, but protected from me by a gate, barbed-wire and an electric fence, sits a huge cromlech—a boulder marking an ancient burial site. Above it, on the west of a hill, is the outline of an old ring fort. If I’ve got my bearings right, the place is called Templefaughnan, and Bohonagh can’t be far away. The tome tells me that St Fachtna, who is credited with bringing Christianity to this area in the sixth century, is reputed to have preached the gospel in this very field.
    He wouldn’t have much joy if he came back today, mind you. Five modern bungalows guard the field in a protective semi-circle, in case the barbed-wire and the electricity aren’t enough to put you off. I think of scaling the gate for a closer look, but the thought of some beefy farmer lurking behind the net curtains, with ginger hair growing out of his ears and nostrils, just itching to exclude the duty of care to some trespassing English bastard, persuades me to drive on.
    Round the first bend in the lane, opposite a bungalow with crazy-paved gateposts, is a roadside holy grotto. In marked contrast to the rugged, ancient boulder in the field, it looks as pristine as a gilt-framed picture of Daniel O’Donnell on a suburban convent mantelpiece. Either side of an altar-shaped slab stand the Virgin Mary and a chap I take to be St Fachtna himself, but who is a dead ringer for Willie Nelson. Country and western is popular out here, though, so you never know.
    Searching for pagan stones in the midst of this Catholic iconography is making me feel like a devil worshipper who’s