Westport and How do you pronouncing “hurling”?

This past Saturday I spent the day in Westport, which is a town on the western side of Ireland (Dublin’s on the Eastern side.)

The train ride was a bit tedious, it takes 4 hours to get from Dublin to Westport but the scenery was beautiful so long as you weren’t napping or doing reading necessary for today’s classes. I saw at least 3 old abandoned towers or castles. It was hard to tell what they used to be. Also if you want to see a load of sheep, cows and horses frolicking together in harmony, then this is a trip for you. The land was exactly what you would expect Ireland to look like and the animals grazed over the remains of stone walls that no longer mark the borders of anything. Also as a note saying “Hey” every time you see hay is not so funny the thousandth time.

The town itself was beautiful and had a bunch of cute antique, pottery, music, and jewellery shops. I stop in for a pint as soon as I got there and had some delicious sea food chowder. New England chowder has nothing on this stuff. This isn’t surprising since the 2 main ingredients in chowder are potatoes and fish.

It was easy to get out of town and walk to Westport house. The house itself is now a pirate theme park but the lands around it are full of trees to climb and mud to get stuck in and old abandoned buildings to explore. It was very easy to venture off the path and go exploring without any interruption.

After getting my boots plenty dirty I went to Matt Malloy’s which is a fantastic pub. Guinness and Beamish (which I think is better, it is a stout but it tastes a little sweeter) are only 3.20 a lot less than the 5 euro pints you get used to in Dublin and had a meal (smoked salmon sandwich and chips) for under 10 euro.

My only regret was having to get on a train back at 6. Next time I’ll make sure to plan a trip where I can spend the night in the town in question. Note: most pubs don’t start traditional music till 10 and will play all night.

Sunday was the GAA Hurling finals between Kilkenny and Tipperary. It was awesome. Hurling or owling or urling or uring as I heard it called throughout the week before is like a mix of rugby and lacrosse. It is brutal and drammatic.

Interesting also is the fact that the athletes who compete are not paid; they get compensated a little but most of the money from ticket sales and sponsorship goes back to the GAA. So as we were watching in a local pub near the apartments the announcers would say a player’s name and then announce that he was a primary school teacher.

Kilkenny won in the last 10 minutes of the 70 minute game. This win is they’re 4th in a row and that hasn’t been done in over 40 years. It was great to be there it could only have been better if I was in Kilkenny.