McCarthy's Bar - Pete McCarthy

Ireland, land of the Leprechauns, hospitality, lots of English tax exiles and apparently land of many a pub with McCarthy in the title. Well so I am lead to believe having read Pete McCarthy’s journal of his trip round Ireland in a battered old Volvo, with a dead bird trailing out of its exhaust. Now to get one thing straight, I am not a fan of travel books, Mr Bryson the acclaimed guru of the genre and myself do not get on. Sorry, he sends me to sleep with the boring bits, of which there are usually at least 5 or 6 chapters. So, why did I try McCarthy’s bar, well partly to try and understand the Irish a little more? My girlfriend’s family ...  Read the complete review

What a brilliantly simple idea for a book! Travel around Ireland and visit as many bars as you can find that match your name. It would been more challenging if he'd picked somewhere like Japan for instance - would he have managed to obtain a drink at all? I wonder? Of course, relatively easy if like this author you have some Irish heritage and you're called McCarthy - Mr and Mrs White Swan would have a field day in England too, but it maybe a bit more difficult for most of us. This is McCarthys first book and it's an impressive debut. I only hope that the copious amounts of alcohol consumed in the research for this book have not resulted in some serious ...  Read the complete review

"Never pass a bar that has your name on it." is,according to the author of this book, the eigth rule of travel. And, in the west of Ireland, a proliferation of McCarthy's (Or MacCarthy's) bars makes this an easy edict for Pete McCarthy to follow. McCarthy was born in Warrington, England to an Irish mother and an English father. As a child, he made frequent visits to Ireland to see relatives and came to regard the country as his spiritual home, a place full of "golden childhood memories". His book "McCarthy's Bar" is the story of his return as an adult. McCarthy has a very perceptive view of Ireland (and all ...  Read the complete review

After being involved in TV both behind and in front of the camera, Pete McCarthy wrote a book. In this book, he travels through Ireland, stopping at every pub called 'McCarthy's', and, and that's it! McCarthy's mum was Irish, and so his childhood was spent with yearly summer holiday trips to the country, which perhaps drew him back there as an adult. As one would expect considering the brief, this is a funny book, that combines comedy and Irish travel in a way very similar to Tony Hawks' 'Round Ireland With A Fridge'. As many of the stories are set in pubs, you may correctly imagine much of it revolves around drunken annecdotes, which at times are ...  Read the complete review

Pete McCarthy needs to know the answer to one question. Does he have the right to feel Irish, to feel as if he belongs in Ireland? During the course of the book, and his travels, his expereince raises many more questions which he asks of the experts; the Irish themselves. McCarthy was born of an Irish mother and English father. He was born and brough up in Warrington and spent many summer holidays in Cork, West Ireland with his mother's family. Now an adult and a travle writer for The Rough Guide series and a travel presenter for Channel 4, he goes back to Ireland to do a little research into his emotional ancestry. The reader joins him every step, ...  Read the complete review