OT: Ireland Pub Guide???

I guess these are better than nothing, but there is no mention of accommodation in the first, and the second one seems pretty useless. It says there are two entries for Tipperary for instance, but when you click on the link it then says "no entries"! Similarly Westmeath - 6 entries, but only one actually exists.

And you'd better like Guinness or Caffrey's, as that's all most pubs sell. Ireland is basically a real ale desert. But then I suspect you already know that. :-)

Our visit, last week, to Ireland was a disaster as far as real ale was concerned.

We went to most places we could get to in the Good Beer Guide: Ballymena (NRA), Carrickfergus (fight beginning so we didn't stay), Coleraine, Hillsborough, (best beer we had) Bangor (left flat, sour beer), Londonderry, Lisburn's Tap room (could only get beer if having a meal, closed at 9pm, another night - closed for a wedding party) Lisburn's Tuesday Bell and Newtownards. Belfast was that grim we didn't stay more than an hour.

Most of these were Wetherspoons and we saw no one else drinking real ale. There was little choice - usually 2 beers and a cider, and the two beers were things like Abbot, and often not good.

I can't believe how Irish people seem to be satisfied with so little choice - Guinness and Harp and Magners, mostly. No bitter at all - apart from thin and fizzy Smithwick's. Lagers - all dull big brand ones - nothing interesting, even in bottles. It's really funny how they all take pride in their 'best pint of Guinness in town'!!

I was also looking out for locally baked bread, local cheeses and ice-creams - nothing of the sort! No farm shops. All food shops small supermarkets or butchers! Lots of these!

The only place in the republic we enjoyed a drink was in Sligo, a place called McGarrigles, where there was Hoegaarden and a number of bottled English beers and a landlord who sometimes drank them.

However, there were some superb bars - almost museums! We also got live traditional music somewhere everynight, and the smokefree pubs in the republic were a joy to be in - and very busy too!! We also got to the oldest pub in Ireland, Seans in Athlone.

But it was a great place to visit!

In article , Chris de Cordova writes

Sounds like nothing much has changed since I left 22 years ago.

We've had a tendency to leap with glee on the latest packaged, processed food or drink fad that's been thrown our way.

I find the people who usually do that often don't actually drink it.

It comes from when pubs and merchants used to bottle their own Guinness from casks supplied by the brewery, and the label they used were from Guinness and overprinted with their own names.

In the early 60s I can remember Guinness being bottled at my grandfather's pub, and the labels bore his name. There was a big drinks store out the back where the bottles and casks were kept.

It was up to him and his bar staff to store the bottles correctly to avoid spoilage, so quality could vary a lot from pub to pub compared with the standard offering today. But you can still have a bad pint now if the beer lines aren't maintained properly.

In the North at least the major UK supermarket chains have made significant inroads especially over the past 10 years. Towns where I grew up didn't have supermarkets, but all have them now.

There are still a few cheesemakers still around, mainly in the Republic, but I'm not sure how available their produce is locally.

Too late for you now, but here's a link:

As for food, that's a bit more difficult, but I found some markets where you're more likely to find local produce:

I had lunch and a pint years ago - about 1993 - in another Sligo pub - Hargadons. The only place where I didn't enjoy a drink was a pub in Killarney, where I was given a really off Guinness. It was replaced smartish.

I've just realised that we missed out on some possibilities

:o((

The Biddy Early Brewery in Inagh, Co Clare, nearish to a place called Ennis, nearish to Galway ... you could go there, Spike - nearer than Enniskillen!

Here's their website:

And this site lists other (all) breweries in Ireland.

Wished I'd researched better before we went!!

I went there several years ago. It cost me 20 Irish punts for a taxi to take me there from Ennis and back again (bus service was no use at all).

Lots of CAMRA certificates on the wall, but the beers on tap were all keg:-(

Hi, Oh this is not good news. There will be many teachers from England, Scotland and Wales converging upon Belfast for a national conference at Easter. Maybe Weatherspoons will be crowded. BW.... Chris F.

British Iyonix & RISC OS 5.12 The best elecricity in the world is made in Lancashire.

Wetherspoons

(bad sig seperator it needs to be dash dash space)

Easter? NI? mad!

@@@@@@@ Not sure about this. @@@@@ If you mean BW -- Chris F. Then maybe I do understand... but will ignore ;-)

Hi, Why mad? I've never been, so I'm not sure what you're getting at. BW.... Chris F.

British Iyonix & RISC OS 5.12 The tripe mines of Lancahire have a 100% safety record.

As a member of the union going to Belfast for the Easter Conference, I am heartily glad that I ceased to be my branch's conference delegate 3 years ago.

I am wholeheartedly glad I am not going to Belfast for that conference. Dreadful place - really dreadful! Shopping centre appalling, roadworks galore on all the main roads in and through the city. Awful scenery in the immediate area, and having seen where my county's delegates are booked to stay, I feel sorry for them and even more for their partners!!

However, my experiences of many years of those conferences were that very few delegates were bothered about real ale.

The standard net agreed method of allowing compliant news/mail readers to auto-delete the signature material of an item from the reply is to put a line starting with two dashes followed by a space and then a carriage return and then put the material you want in the signature after that. (Mine below is about as simple as they come two dashes space return and then my name.)

It is polite to do it, not being polite often leads to being ignored (or in this medium simply deleted as irritatingly ignorant).

Unlike a number of versions of MS Outlook or Outlook Express, Messenger Pro is perfectly capable of doing the job for you - let it help you be polite.

Hi, OK. Looks messy to me, but if it makes you content...

-- BW Chris F.

British Iyonix & RISC OS 5.12 Why do superstores need to be illuminated when closed?

Didn't work. If it had done, everything after 'content...' would have gone.

Have you got a space then an enter after the two hyphens?

It looks neater to me (and no doubt to others) as the distinction between reply and extraneous rubbish is clear.

That is still broken. You do not have a space at the end of the line. As I said the correct form is dash dash space and then a new line.

I'm sure someone over on c.s.a.* can give you step by step instructions.

Hi, Am I really supposed to miss out on a sip of beer to comply with the net-police? I think not.

-- BW Chris F.

British Iyonix & RISC OS 5.12 "Both the defendants received different sentences." Oh no they didn't. (Join EMROE)

Sorry, it was only meant as friendly advice. (perhaps your newsreader strips trailing blanks, as did (does?, I don't use it now) Outlook Express. You might type dash dash space, but it posts just dash dash.

Messenger (and Messenger Pro) do not strip the space, they can be used with an external editor which may be set to strip the trailing space but that isn't normal. Just for Chris I'm wearing a blue shirt but I will forego the helmet. :-)