A Clew... Finally!

On the road again. Today we drove from our digs in N Ireland, to Clew Bay in the Republic of Ireland. We were excited about settling in for a week-long stay on Clew Bay on the west coast of Ireland. We've learned that a longer stay at least once on these trips is a must, a chance to slow down and do things at a more leisurely pace. Once again, our research panned out, and we chose well on lodging, in this case a 3 bedroom, 2 bath home overlooking Clew Bay. Again, this was less expensive than most hotels would have been. The Internet would work but this place was so nice and perfectly situated that I didn't really mind... and that's saying something!

In 1842, Wm Thackeray wrote of Clew Bay: "The most beautiful view I ever saw in the world."

The owner of our rental here is a sports writer, currently covering the World Cup in South America. Our instructions were to pick up the key at the local pub, Staunton's Pub, just a couple of hundred yards from the house as it turned out. There was a lad tending the bar at the pub who couldn't have been old enough to be serving liquor, but he was helpful about finding our key behind the bar, and his little brother came in and set us straight on how to get to the place... which was right on the same road as the pub, just around a bend. I say this because we had happened into just what we were hoping for... a small town with a local pub, on the bay, where we could experience rural Ireland.

The pub is owned and run by Therese Staunton, and she is the bartender most of the time (pictured in the photo with Jan at the top of this post). We went back to the pub after we checked out our house to ask if they knew anything about the Internet at the house. Therese was there then and we had a drink and chatted with her for about 2 hours. She couldn't help with the Internet, but we knew after talking to her that Therese and her pub were the social center of this small town of Lecanvey. She stressed that I could come use the Internet at the pub anytime I wanted and didn't have to buy anything. We spent several evenings there, having a pint, eating soup and sandwiches, and chatting and telling jokes with Therese and the locals. And the pub was so close to our house that I stopped many times over the course of the week to just get email, or research something, from their parking lot. Sort of a lemonade out of lemons thing since no Internet at the house occasioned us to meet Therese's family and most of the people in the tiny community. Toward the end of our stay here, we would be the only non-locals at the community's annual bonfire on St John's Eve... they shared their Smores and their stories with us... more later on this special evening.

And this was the view from our front porch at midnight, as we prepared for bed...