McCarthy's Bar: A Journey of Discovery in Ireland (21 page)

Singapore Prison is close to the international airport, and they’re both called Changi. I once visited the memorial to the allied prisoners of the Second World War just outside the jail. It was a humid, sweltering day, when the slightest movement left you drenched in perspiration and reflecting how it must have been to be a prisoner of war here. It’s still rumoured to be a cramped and oppressive place, airless and moist, where strangers fester side by side in the half-light amid the stench of overripe human flesh.

Just like the hostel in Killarney, then.

It’s hot in the street, but even hotter in the dorms. On either side of the upstairs corridor, doors open on to tiny rooms containing three or four sets of bunks. In one of them, two Australian prisoners—sorry, travellers—lie smoking, while trying to outdo each other with tales of beaches in Indonesia. One of them is also boasting of having got lucky last night with a local girl, but his friend doesn’t believe him, and neither do I. There’s barely room to pick your way to the door through the rancid T-shirts and socks that appear to have been fired like shrapnel in all directions by exploding backpacks. The room is imbued with that deep, bass-note stench of male feet that, once absorbed, can never be exorcised. The French girl on reception says that for twelve quid I can have the bottom bunk in the corner, but, quite honestly, I’d rather pay to get shingles. The fake eighteenth-century country house hotel across the road doesn’t stink, but it does charge £135 a night for a single room. Maybe coming to Killarney was a mistake. I blame Thackeray.

The drive from Allihies via Kenmare and the Connor Pass took a couple of hours. Before leaving, I had a morning walk round the copper mines on the mountainside above Allihies. It was clear and bright, and suddenly warm, as if there might be a chance of Ireland having a summer this year. Out to sea, the Skellig Rocks were clearly visible for the first time since I’d arrived. On one of them, Skellig Michael, are the ruins of a ninth-century monastery. Centuries ago, people would gather on the cliff top on Dursey or at Allihies, kneel and face the Skelligs at mass time and pray along with a service they couldn’t see or hear.

I headed east along the northern side of the peninsula towards Kenmare and Killarney. The views looking north across the Kenmare Estuary to the mountains of the Ring of Kerry are sensational, especially when an absence of weather means you can actually see them. I stopped at one point to climb the hillside and take it all in, and to pull another couple of yards of sooty feathers out of the exhaust. Lying in the road, near where I’d parked, was a large dead animal—possibly a badger—that had been skinned. It was a gruesome sight. I looked around for a culprit, but there was nothing except a large horned sheep, also in the middle of the road, watching me. Sheep don’t skin badgers, do they? It’s not mentioned in the
I Spy
book.

I drove on, stopping a couple of times to go ferreting up mountainsides looking for mass rocks and standing stones. I know this passion for old stones is beginning to seem like an obsession, but when there are no sushi restaurants or art-house cinemas to hang out in, you have to make your own fun. At one point I followed a waterfall up the hillside through ferns and thick woods. At the top, I stopped to gaze out over the mountains, lakes and islands of Kerry, but found myself instead gazing in wonder at the beautiful emerald moss that covered the rocks at my feet. Wow, I thought. At home I go mental trying to get rid of the moss in the garden, but here I realise how beautiful it is. It was a moment of great realisation. I realised the solitude and the natural beauty were turning me soft in the head. It was time to go somewhere with lots of people and buildings, so I could get back in touch with my uncaring, cynical side. I needed quality time in a major tourist trap. I went back to the Tank and hit the road for Killarney.

It was gorgeous moss though.

‘A hideous row of houses informed us that we were at Killarney,’ observed Thackeray, and you know what? He wasn’t wrong. ‘Killarney—Looking Good’, says the sign, but, whichever direction you approach from—and I tried several, in a vain attempt to escape the gridlock—you are greeted by rows and rows of B&Bs. Many are suburban semis and terraces, small family homes that, Tardis-like, have miraculously created the space to accommodate big-boned American families reared on hormone-enriched all-you-can-eat buffets. Others are grander, executive-style homes that look like they were assembled last week from a doll’s house kit. All are festooned with signs proclaiming their attractions. ‘All Rooms En-Suite! TV! Car Space! Tea And Coffee Making Facilities!’ they shout. But why stop there? People shouldn’t sell themselves short. Tourism’s a cut-throat business. You need to get all your selling points up there on the board. ‘Sheets On All Beds!’. ‘Legs To Keep Bed Off Floor!’ ‘Drawer To Put Underpants In!’ ‘Walls!’

It was a shock to the system after Beara, but it was also the reason I was here. After wandering in glorious, deserted landscapes, and being treated as long-lost family in fantasy smalltown pubs, a dose of mainstream tourism would be good for the soul. If anything could expose my feelings of belonging as phoney sentimentality, Killarney might do the trick. A few days hanging out with wannabe Irish from all corners of the civilised world, and Australia, might put things in perspective, and make me deny my heritage. ‘What, me, mate? No, I’m English, can’t stand the place. I just sell ’em the plastic windows.’

I am also here because of Thackeray, whose
Irish Sketchbook
I’ve been reading ever since Beara. It’s always a good idea to travel with an unfashionable and preferably out-of-date guidebook, otherwise you end up like all those poor sods you see reading the
Lonely Planet Guide
in real, authentic places that are reassuringly full of other people just like them.

Thackeray came here to go stag hunting, but didn’t get a glimpse of one. All he saw all day were four dogs and a German. Even then, in 1842, Killarney was a major tourist trap, with prices to match.

The town of Killarney was in a violent state of excitement…and attracted a vast crowd from all parts of the kingdom. All the inns were full, and lodgings cost 5 shillings a day, nay, more in some places; for, though my landlady, Mrs MacGillicuddy, charges but that sum, a leisurely old gentleman whom I never saw in my life before, made my acquaintance by stopping me in the street yesterday and said he paid a pound a day for his two bedrooms.

It’s quite likely that this sort of thing still goes on; that wild-eyed visitors lurch up to complete strangers in the centre of town, grab them by the sleeve, and say, ‘Look, you don’t know me, and I’m sorry to bother you, but I’m going to go mad if I don’t tell someone! Look at this receipt! Look how much I’m paying for a single room. Unbelievable, isn’t it?’

Leaving the hostel, I see a hotel on New Street has a sign advertising, ‘Special B & B Rates’, but the young English woman at the reception desk actually laughs when I ask for a single room. ‘I’ve only got rooms with three beds in, so I’d have to charge you the same as for three people. It’d be ridiculously expensive.’ I ask if that’s what they mean by special rates.

‘It’s just a revenue thing. We’re very greedy in the hotel industry in Ireland.’ She even repeats it for me when I ask her, so that I can write it down. They should put it on their headed notepaper.

Outside the big hotels, pony and trap drivers with the faces of medieval assassins are touting for business among gaggles of befuddled recent arrivals who are wandering around in a collective trance, like Stepford Tourists. ‘Will the horse expect extra oats?’ enquires an admirably self-aware American, who, at a guess, has won a trip to Europe as first prize in the Fattest Arse in the Midwest competition. Perched on top of the cart in baseball cap, stripy stretch fabric polo shirt and vast architect-designed shorts, he looks like Tweedledum. It takes two of the assassins to hoist his wife up there to join him, like Tweedledee in drag. The horse craps ostentatiously in derision, and off they trundle, to provide a bit of comic relief for the people stuck in the traffic jams.

The shops are impressively well stocked with leprechaun ashtrays and shamrock rosary beads, and there’s an Italian restaurant where you can get a steak and still have change from twenty quid. Vegetables are extra. By seven o’clock, when I’m still tramping round looking for somewhere to stay, the streets are packed with people of all nationalities. As well as the hordes of Americans, I hear Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Italian, Welsh, Scandinavian, French, Ulster and Dutch, but no Germans, because they’re all in Cork driving taxis and singing folk songs. A ripple effect passes along the street, as groups of people pause to look at the menu in the window of the Italian restaurant, then recoil in horror as they realise they could send a taxi to Cork city for a Singapore noodles carry-out and still save money.

I’m beginning to realise that the parts of the country I’ve been in so far have been deserted because every bugger’s here. Suddenly the gridlocked traffic is overtaken by Tweedledum and Tweedledee, careering along in their souped-up tumbril as the assassin cracks his whip. To show they’ve been assimilated into Celtic society, they’re both now draped in tartan picnic rugs. He’s smoking a large cigar, while she’s opted for a packet of fudge as big as Dobbin’s nosebag, to tide her over till dinner in half an hour’s time. Irish hotels catering for Americans are aware of the need to serve American-sized portions, so she’ll soon be tucking into a whole spit-roast pig, followed by a main course, all washed down with pints of Diet Coke to stop her from getting fat.

As the Tweedles pass from my field of vision, a handwritten ‘Vacancies’ sign is revealed on the frosted-glass front door of a small and unsympathetically modernised terraced house. The auburn-haired teenage girl who answers the door smirks when I ask if they’ve got a single room, as if there’s a private joke I’m not in on. ‘You’ll have to ask me mother.’ Mum duly appears in the narrow hallway and corners me by the foot of the stairs.

‘There’s only my son’s room. He’s away for a couple of days in, er…in Dublin, and everything else is full.’ She leads me up the steep, vividly carpeted stairs and across the landing to a magnolia-painted plywood door which is splintered, as if it’s been hit with a blunt instrument. We look at each other. She shrugs.

‘I’m afraid the door’s broken.’

Inside, there’s a magnolia-painted plywood wardrobe, a narrow divan with no headboard, a tiny pink washbasin, and nothing else. Spots of glue pepper the walls like acne. The posters, sneakers, socks, tissues and pizza that are the very fabric of a teenage boy’s life have presumably been bound and gagged and forced, still struggling, into a cupboard under the stairs where they will remain until he gets back. Either that, or the family have topped him, destroyed all his stuff, broken the door getting him out, and dumped his body in one of the famous lakes. After all, Mum didn’t seem too sure about the Dublin alibi, and the girl did have a weird smirk.

‘So, how much for the room?’

She hesitates, then plucks a figure from the air at random. ‘Twenty pounds?’

‘That’ll be fine.’

She punches the air in triumph, does a back flip and slides across the room on her knees; at least, in her imagination. At any rate, she’s clearly delighted. So it’s true what they say about the English: they’ll stay anywhere and not complain.

‘Well, you’ll be the first, you know, since we, er…’

Our eyes meet across the deserted room. ‘Since your son went to Dublin?’

‘That’s right. Dublin. Now, what time would you like breakfast?’

By the time I hit the street it’s almost nine and lots of places will stop serving food soon. I had a quick shower before coming out. I’m sharing the family’s bathroom, for which they apologised profusely, though I’m quite happy. There’s hair in the plughole, family-sized shampoo hanging from a rickety shower over a dark-brown bathtub, and the wiring on the shaving socket is held together with Band-Aid. I’m not complaining. It’s all refreshingly non-corporate. I’m a great believer in putting your cash directly into the local economy rather than giving it to the International Global Chain of Hotel Evil. My hosts could use the money, and they’re homely, natural and unselfconscious, whether they’ve murdered the boy or not.