Guzzling snails on the festive trail

When Waterford were knocked out of the All Ireland Hurling Championship on Saturday, I was sickened. When I was knocked out of the All Ireland Snail Eating Championship on Sunday afternoon I was just plain sick – into a grubby, well-used, garlic-smelling yellow bucket.

The Waterford hurlers put up a much better fight than I did; my hurling was not attractive and far from impressive. There was a huge crowd gathered in the square of Portarlington, Co Laois for the display of gastronomic gastropod gluttony, and they lapped up the suffering of the eejits who’d signed on for the challenge.

Hundreds of Porters gathered in front of the main stage to watch competitors try to down 30 garlic-soaked snails in the fastest time possible. I was struck by the ingeniousness of this: many Irish towns are shelling out big bucks for Bressie, Imelda, Damo and a host of other headliners to play the backs of lorries in the squares of their parishes and pueblos. A hundred weight of snails is much cheaper, and torturing townsfolk with them seems to pull even bigger crowds. (Festival committees take note – ritual humiliation is a big draw.)

Vincent Kelly from Portarlington proved to be the Jackie Tyrell of the snail world. Man of the match on the day, Kelly put away an impressive 30 shellicky bookeys in 1 minute 13 seconds. I think I'm going to gag again.

This bush tucker trial was just one facet of Festival Français de Portarlington that ran over the whole weekend, with the main mean event saved until Bastille Day. The festival is a celebration of the town's Huguenot heritage and it has all the hallmarks of a village fête, with the sunshine lending the community buzz plenty of smiles and happy families.

There are still some Deverouxs and Champs living in the town, the postman is French, butcher Kevin Bracken peddles prize winning vol-au-vents. So as I walked past the French Cafe on French Church Street, it made odd sense to find that a Gallic get-together had taken root along this part of the Laois/Offaly border.

I was saving my misplaced European festivities shock for a shindig that was taking place just down the road in Co Kildare. The Monasterevin Venice of Ireland Festival was running parallel to the snail-slinging in Portarlington. There must be something in the waters of the Barrow that has prompted the pandemic of pan-European parties in these parts.

True, they do have an above-average number of bridges in Monasterevin, but the “Venice of Ireland” label might be a bit of a reach. “Did they at least have a gondola?” I was asked when explaining it to someone afterwards. Nope. There were some Cornettos available in the town, and they had a canoe or two and some model boats that kids had made as part of the festivities, but no sign of a gondola, straw hat or stripy geansaí.

Don’t get me wrong; there was plenty of family fun to be knocked out of this festival for the locals, but there may be some grounds for a claim of false advertising. This craic should be nipped in the bud before we have the “Tuam Paris of Ireland Festival”. Hey, there are some castles around Tuam and it has a couple of museums. And the “Thurles Barcelona of Ireland Festival” could be justified on the basis of a famous sports arena, some onions and the possibility of your pocket being picked on the main thoroughfare.

Perhaps I was feeling poorly after all the mollusc munching, but I remained underwhelmed by the Venice of Ireland Festival in Monasterevin. I wandered round the town looking for action, but eventually gave up and just stood on one of the town’s many bridges and sighed.

They do have a grand canal, though.

Safe travels, don’t die.