The road to the West on Friday night, any Friday night, any time of the year; never mind frost warnings or black ice, they're off. And West in this case means largely Counties Galway and Mayo. Nothing unusual in leaving at 8 in the evening, when traffic should have died down somewhat. Three and a half hours to Corrib country, another half hour (?) for Roundstone or Clifden. (Just a guess.) Driving at night, on a Friday night, too. Are you mad? Yes, mad about the West, you know. Maybe as with the painters mentioned yesterday, there is some old ancestral yearning for customs of the past, or an atmosphere of them, and the pervasive smell off the bogs and mountains and lakes. Or the romantic idea of smoke curling up from thatched cottages. Probably central heating in holiday cottages outdoes them. But there is a tang to the air from the Atlantic. There is a peace, especially at this time of the year when the tourist buses are no more and the beaches of Gortin Bay and, farther out, Bunowen or Renvyle are lovely in their peace. The trout season is now open on Corrib, but this is only incidental to many of the westbound. The bain in jacket may be more of a holiday purchase for the visitor than for the people who work the bogs and the fields.
You don't have to have your origins there, but it helps if there is a family tradition. "This is where our grandfather fished for lovely sea trout. This is one of the houses our grandmother lived in when she was widowed." Family memories handed down of Josie Mongan's hotel in Carna, and the days when they met you, with side-cars at Recess station. Bulmer Hobson's cottage at Gortin is no longer there. The graveyard on the slope of the dunes is where he is buried. Authors of angling books often include interesting little asides. A.A. Luce in his Fishing and Thinking (1959: Hodder and Stoughton) notes that Lough Conn is "The Lake of the Hound" and reminds us that "the winner of the Grand National some years ago . . . bore the name Lough Conn. The tough little winner of that testing chase was born and bred beside the lake and pulled the plough there in sight of anglers." So our westward pilgrims drive back on Sunday night; with luck, being granted an extra day and appearing in the office on Tuesday, well refreshed in mind and body.