McCarthys Bar

 Pete McCarthy’s Bar

1. I am reading McCarthy’s Bar for the third time. And enjoying it more than ever. It opens with the marvelous premise that you should never pass a bar with your name over it. He follows this and other rules religiously.  
2. I read it for the first time in Mallorca over Easter 2003. It rained solidly day and night for 72 hours and persuaded me to hop on a plane to buy in the Canaries where winter sun is guaranteed. On the fourth day the rain clouds dissipated and sun deprived pasty faced  holiday makers gathered round the pool. Lorraine was sorely embarrassed at my breaking into uncontrolled laughter. The Brits smiled benignly as they regarded this as typically Irish behavior while reading a book. I can assure you it is not. 
3. The book has been lent to me by a class mate and in turn I have lent him the sequel, the amusing but inferior McCarthy’s World. 
4. I did buy at least one copy of McCarthys Bar but lent it on at least one occasion without return. I don’t normally mind when books are not returned but this is one book worth keeping. 
5. A horrible thought has struck me. What if I have donated it to the Quaker Library in Monkstown by mistake? No way of finding out during lockdown. Heavens!  
6. I enjoyed reading the book the first time because it’s a very funny book. But what I had missed was that beyond being a really humorous piece of writing it is really well researched. 
7. It is knowledgeable  beyond most travel books. 
8. No writer loves Ireland and the Irish more than Pete. No one can reveal our foibles with less mercy than he.  
9. It is perceptive about Ireland and it’s people and immigrants and tourists beyond any other social commentary I’ve read. 
10. While Pete might be appalled at the thought it’s fair to ask if it is not also a self help book that suggests we change our attitudes to time, travel, prejudices and Chinese food? 
11. In no other travel book has the joy of traveling been more enjoyable than the act of arriving. 
12. The book is all the more poignant because within four years Pete had died of cancer when there were daily more obvious mortal dangers on his travels. 
13. He has the timing of a stand up comedian. Which of course he was. 
14. He almost gives Volvo Cars a good name. (I’m on my 10th Volvo - 14th if I include Lorraine) I’m nostalgic for the clunky chunky Volvos of the eighties and nineties. 
15. It is a book of social reference for an Ireland that was beginning to lose its sense of self during the Celtic Tiger. 
16. It is the Gospel of unintended consequences and the joys of an unplanned grand journey. 
17. It is a criticism of travelers like me who organize everything and miss the fun of everything going wrong which produce the best memories. Often the only memories. 
18. Pete would dismiss all this as ridiculous. But he would be only partly right. 

20th March 2021