Westport and Leenane

Bidding farewell to Dublin and renting a car, we hit the road and headed to the countryside.  After accustoming ourselves to the near-death experience that is driving on rural roads in Ireland, we made our way to our first stop, Westport.  Westport is a quaint little town, with lots of shops, restaurants and, of course, pubs.  After doing a little exploring and taking a (somewhat taxing) bike ride on the local bike trail, we stopped into Matt Molloy's, which we were told was the cant-miss watering hole in Westport. 

Around since 1896, Molloy's has a great vibe, decked out with authentic trinkets from its early years like old pictures, product packages, and the like.  It is small, cozy, and feels like the epitomal small-town pub.  It is also supposed to be one of the best spots for traditional Irish folk music in the world.  Unfortunately, we were too early in the day to catch any of it.  But we did get a chance to talk to the owner's son, who was tending the bar.  He gave us some history on the place, as well as the recent shift in serving convention for Guinness.  Typically served at or just below room temperature, in recent years puns have begun serving it colder in response to customer requests.  Molloy's, however, keeps a second tap of room-temperature Guinness on hand, and will gladly pour you a "roomie" upon request (or mix a little of each tap together to bring the temp up a little).  After a couple beers with Molloy's, though, the road was calling our names and we headed on. 

After a stopover in Dromore West in Sligo Co., where we met some distant relatives and got some great family history, we hit the road to Leenane.  My mother had just done a run of "The Beauty Queen of Leenane," and wanted to see the play's setting in person.  Leenane turned out to be a pretty, if small, village on Killary Harbor in Connemara.  

Apart from a few inns and restaurants, its primary attraction is Gaynor's pub, which was the setting for the movie The Field.  The pub itself is warm and inviting, with dark wood and a roaring fire in the fireplace (a welcome feature on a chilly fall night), and the walls are decorated with articles about the film shot there.  But the charm ended there, in my opinion.  Gaynor's was the first place we stopped on our crawl where we didn't really feel welcome, as the bartender seemed to resent a group of non-locals taking up a table in the near-empty bar.  She did not ick up on our attempt to strike up a chat and, apart from one patron that stopped us to chat for a minute, I generally got the vibe that we weren't wanted there.  (Or at least, no one was interested I talking to us--which is about the same thing in Ireland.)  After finishing a round, we headed out, disappointed but optimistic about our next stops.