Westport

Westport is home to Matt Molloy´s pub, member of The Chieftains, a very famous traditional Irish group. So I HAD to go there every night to hear the great music, right? The lively group above is playing next door to Matt´s, at Porter´s pub and you could hear great music coming from every other pub in town, quite a feat for a village that only has 4 main streets to start with.

On. Sat., the local horse and donkey owners association held their annual fair and big-booted men clomped through town from their farms to give them a look-over. I especially loved the sweet-faced donkey above and offered to buy him (1000 euros!!). Across the way was a very vocal pony, yanking his owner around, neighing and yelling, and and causing a ruckus. I asked the lady who owned the donkeys what the horse was complaining about and she said that the donkey was his friend, that they share a pasture together, and he wanted to be with his friend. My heart broke when I realized that they both may be sold and somehow that horse knew this and was so upset by it. Can I buy both of them, I asked, half in jest.

Besides the animal melodrama, Westport is a wonderful small town in the NW corner of Connemara, Co. Mayo, I was able to hitch out of town, getting a lift with a lady taking her dog for a run on the beach who left me off at the foot of Crough Padraig, and then from a man who was going all the way to the beach at Louisburg to do a short job, he was an engineer doing some water supply testing, and so he also gave me a lift back into town. Hitching in Ireland used to be very easy and safe. Now everyone has cars so people aren´t as friendly anymore -- they want to know why you don´t have one.

I stayed at the Old Mill Youth Hostel, got a lower bunk bed in a 7 bed room for 18 euros, with kitchen privileges. clean toilets, and adequate showers. I went to the library for free internet, ate bread and cheese in the nearby park along the river, and sat in the weak autumn sun in between short showers. I also treated myself to a movie -- Jodie Foster in The Brave One, very thought-provoking about choices of violent behavior we might make under certain cirsumstances. The Old Mill was full Thurs. and Fri. so I moved in to The Abbeywood, had a 4 bed room all to myself and I spent time with Mischa, an older man from Hungary trying to support his family who still live in a small village in Hungary.

Westport struck a chord with me, a nice small friendly town, village really, on a river, near spectacular coast, easy to get around, probably easy to live here. I also met an Austrian woman, Marina, who is moving here to work as a nurse. We talked about how good it felt in this town but couldn´t quite put our finger on why.