Accordions, flutes and, invariably, fiddles ring the changes and keep toes tapping. The 150-year-old O'Connor's attracts a mix of tourists and Irish for the nightly sessions and though there's often a ballad with a "toorrah-loora, wack-for-me-diddly, tiggiddy-tiggidy-tora" chorus for anyone to join in with, the emphasis is on jigs and reels. My sea kayak circumnavigation of Ireland stalled here for several weeks and I spent many evenings with a borrowed guitar banging out old tunes.ĭ Gus O'Connor's, Doolin, Co Clareĭoolin is jumping off point for ferries out to the Aran Islands but it's long been known that there's as good or better traditional music here than on the mainland. Don't miss the handprints of famous visitors, Dolly Parton among them, pressed into the pavement at the door. Though it has few formal music sessions it's the kind of place where musicians on the way to gigs or winding down after playing strike up for the hell of it. Dick Mack's is barely a leather-work workshop nowadays, though the tools, cutting board and bits and pieces are still there, but it is the best place for wildly creative talk about local myths, Fungi the dolphin, the time that Ryan's Daughter was filmed on the peninsula and the state of the world. +353 (0)28 20379, /thejollyrogerpub Dick Mack's, Green Street, Dingle, Co Kerryĭingle specialises in the traditional shop-bar … or is it bar-shop? Depends on whether you need a drink or to buy something. I know this because I've spent several months over past winters on the island and the Jolly was the antidote to gales and rain. There are regular gigs from mainland bands and with its crosswords, games and fire it's just as – or even more – welcoming in the winter. Then head to the Jolly for a drink and very likely an informal music session. Ramble the fuchsia lined lanes, swim from Silver Strand or visit the ruins of the old abbey. You'll need to kayak out to the Jolly, or at least take the ferry from Baltimore, but once on the island you're in paradise. The Jolly Roger, Sherkin Island, Roaringwater Bay, Co Cork Or, as someone else pointed out, perhaps there were four times fewer pubs to distract me. Either the weather was four times better in the second half of the circumnavigation, or I was four times fitter. But it took only two and a half weeks to paddle the second 500 from Malin down the east coast back to the Mizen. It took me two and a half months to struggle round the first 500 miles from Mizen Head in the south to Ireland's most northerly point, Malin Head. I finally completed the circuit of the world's 20th largest island in mid-September. Rather than being frustrated by the vagaries of the weather and the long hold-ups I reverted to past habits and borrowed guitars to play in come-all-ye sessions or added my tales – looking around to find a shark as long as the kayak following me when off the Mayo coast, being caught in a gale and dragged out to sea in Dundalk Bay – to the stories told along counters over slowly sipped pints.
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