The Herald - The Herald Magazine
DRIVE: WILD ATLANTIC WAY
THE word craic is faux Gaelic, a bogus neologism stolen from the English word crack, then borrowed back again by the Brits for some ‘value added.’ Dublin is so full of craic that after a couple of days I was itching to blow the blarney away with a blast down the Atlantic coast.
Besides, my no-nonsense teetotal friend Ana had just wafted in from Nice, so I was on parade early, breakfasting on muesli and fresh fruit. We were at the groovy zinc and chrome finished Trinity City hotel opposite Trinity College, where the university’s music department had talked itself to a standstill the previous night while discussing, amongst sundry other things, the liturgical merits of Charles Villiers Stanford.
We took the highway west out of Dublin and pointed the Volvo XC90 towards the ozone of Galway, zipping down to the Wild Atlantic Way via Loughrea and Kinvarra. We were soon driving through an area called The Burren, which boasts the biggest limestone fault in the world, sculpted by glaciers, the ocean and tectonic shifts.
And what better vantage point to survey this from than the capacious cockpit of this smooth and elegant beast? This is a behemoth of a car, perched high enough to see over fences and containing enough seats for even the most Catholic of families. The XC90 is also quite nimble, so is easy to handle on occasionally sinuous terrain.
I suspect it is more of a luxury SUV than a rugged off-roader but I didn’t get the chance to find out, despite Ana’s entreaties to drive into the fields to be amongst the immaculate cattle.
The ‘on-demand’ 4X4 system supplies the front wheels first, sending power through to the rear wheels on demand, so it was possible to push it quite hard on the long stretches of empty countryside though I mostly preferred to cruise slowly.
By lunch time we were feasting on freshly caught seafood at Linnane’s Lobster Bar in New Quay Pier. Gerry Sweeney, who caught our vast platter, was at the bar in his sea boots. The place was heaving and it was easy to see why: it doesn’t get better (or fresher) than this. A pot of tea gave way to one glass of Chablis before the coastal road beckoned once again.
We drove south through across Galway to the fastness of Co Clare where more dreamy cattle in fudge-coloured fur coats ruminated amongst the boulder-strewn verdure. At Ailwee Cave we crossed bridged chasms to the thunderous backdrop of a waterfall.
Then we walked some of the freezing coastal path by the beetling black Cliffs of Moher where fools took selfies by the sign warning of the mortal dangers of doing precisely this. Then at Lisdoonvarna we melted into the discreet warmth of the Wild Honey Inn, dining in the burnished splendour of its Michelin-rated restaurant Bib Gourmand. This is a cosy and comfortable spot, as fine a place as any to play Scrabble by the fire as the rain and wind hammers the windowpanes.
In the morning we headed to Dingle, rounding the misty peninsula and stopped at a lamb stroking station so that my Provençal animal-loving friend could part with €3 to fondle a bedraggled lamb. Near Doonbeg we passed a flowerbed with the word “TRUMP” planted in technicolour. It was the Trump International Golf Links & Hotel Doonbeg. “We must go in and see what it’s like,” insisted Ana.
So we trundled up the long and empty
drive to a set of handsome stone buildings where silent staff scurried around a largely empty edifice. We had seafood soup in the sombre surroundings and despite asking, garnered no gossip on The Donald, though it transpired that he’d once paid a visit.
“He might have been checking the spelling in the flowerbeds,” said a man in a cashmere jumper.
The car was proving a real hit. Ana usually complains about my speed but in this great rolling clubroom I felt disinclined to hoof it, instead opting to savour the surroundings, despite the D5 model’s gurgling twin turbo diesel unit.
Performance is a match for the Land Rover Discovery and Audi A7, though not quite up there with the Porsche Cayenne or new Maserati Levante, though the fastest model does 0-60 in 5.3 seconds.
In Dingle we ate at the brightly coloured seafood shack, Out of the Blue, on the harbour front. This is the small but perfectly formed creation of ex-City of London trader Tim Mason.
Two of the chefs were French and the other vital ingredients came straight from the Atlantic that very morning.
“If there’s no fish, the restaurant doesn’t open,” said Tim. “But there’s always fish in the Atlantic.”
Later we popped into Foxy John’s, a hardware store on the high street, which doubles as a pub. Ana asked if they sold weed killer. I laughed and we ended the night in the Benner Hotel’s splendid old world bar, wondering what fate we would suffer if we went back and killed the Presidential flowerbed.
The final port of call before returning to Dublin was Kinsale, but not before stopping off for a lunchtime pint of stout at Ma Murphy’s cavernous old bar in Bantry. This is where my old fiddler chum Rob Milner, who also teaches opera, holds court every summer.
If time ever did stand still it was in the back bar here, somewhere between the two wars, preserved in a vat of Guinness.
This was turning into quite a drive, with plenty of chance to put the XC90 through its paces. Of the 4X4s we’d tried, this was Ana’s favourite. I found it hard to fault, but it didn’t quite have the polish of a top end Range Rover or the sporty romance of the Levante. And the little ones, if given a choice, would always vote for screens in the back for those especially long tours we occasionally undertake. But the XC90 scores especially well on fuel consumption, averaging 52.3mpg on a run and 45.6mpg around town.
Kinsale is paradise if you’re a foodie with a yacht. It’s pretty agreeable if you’re not. Narrow streets boast restaurants galore and a 17th century fort stands guard above the colourful muddle of galleries, pubs and other temptations.
After another piscatorial triumph – we dined at the excellent “Fishy Fishy,” which belongs to Irish TV cookery star Martin Shanahan – we listened to live music in the pubs until an overdose of charm and whisky brought the curtains down on three days’ blissful relaxation. A far cry from the capital’s gallimaufry of temptation.