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I like reading in a pub rather than a library or study, as it's generally much easier to get a drink.
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Pete McCarthy |
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I reckon if I can't spend the day sleeping, the next best thing is to spend it reading and drinking.
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Pete McCarthy |
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If you've had the right kind of education, it's amazing how many things you can find to feel guilty about.
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guilt
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Pete McCarthy |
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But once you cross the Shannon - even though geographically you have only come a short distance - different rules of time apply, and most people still understand the crucial secret of human happiness: that it's better to do a few things slowly, than a lot of things fast.
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Pete McCarthy |
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That guy in the corner. Never tells the truth, as a matter of principle. Why answer a question, he says, if you can tell a good story instead?
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storytelling
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Pete McCarthy |
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We had found nothing, and had been lost several times already in one morning, so this was shaping up into a top travel experience.
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travel
travel-writing
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Pete McCarthy |
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If life is a book, then read it while you can.
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Pete McCarthy |
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It's always stimulating to visit new places, acquire fresh knowledge and expand your portfolio of nightmares.
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Pete McCarthy |
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The harp player had just fallen off the stage and cracked his head on an Italian tourist's pint. There was a big cheer, and Con the barman rang a bell on the counter. St Patrick's Day, and McCarthy's Bar was heaving.
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Pete McCarthy |
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Never pass a bar with your name on it
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Pete McCarthy |
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I use the pay phone to call my friend Noel. The last time I was here he took me up a mountainside in Connemara with a seventy-eight-year-old poteen-maker who'd learned his craft as a teenager from his father. We spent the day watching him double-distill brown bog water in two oil drums over a turf fire into something that tasted like the finest malt. Noel acted as interpreter, as the old man spoke no English. Perhaps he'll have another adve..
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Pete McCarthy |
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Mind you, he looks a bit out of it, gazing around in confusion, as if his sax player's brain has been removed and replaced with a drummer's.
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Pete McCarthy |
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I find myself thinking, and not for the first time, just how useful wilderness must be when it comes to burying a troublesome relative, or a complete stranger.
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Pete McCarthy |
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The harp player had just fallen off the stage and cracked his head on an Italian tourist's pint. There was a big cheer, and Con the barman rang a bell on the counter.
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Pete McCarthy |
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Wherever you go in the world, there will be people to tell you it'll be bigger, stranger, better, more authentic if you take the time to go somewhere else instead; but if you are there, you won't be here. You can only be at one place at a time, and sleep in one bed each night. Sometimes it's good to know where you are when you wake up.
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Pete McCarthy |
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I find my grandfather, buried with Great-Aunt Hannah and Uncle Jack. His surname is spelled 'MacCarthy', with an extra 'a'; like many names here, it's a translation from the Irish, so the 'a' is optional, and may appear and disappear with the generations.
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Pete McCarthy |