ROVING WRITERS: To prepare for a shark-fishing trip around Clew Bay, Donald Clarke donned manly boots, forwent cologne, and - to summon up the spirit of Robert Shaw in Jaws - decided not to shave. Then everything went belly-up.
As a film critic and author of smart-Alec feature articles, I rarely, if ever, come into contact with savage, bloodthirsty predators (although there was that incident with Holly Hunter). So when I was asked to write about holidays in Ireland, I phoned my friend John - who in his job as something-or-other connected with the EU has equally little to do with tigers, bears or rattlesnakes - and, clutching thumbed Hemingway paperbacks, we set out in search of the only beast common to these shores whose mere proximity can turn milksops into men: The Shark.
Well, it was quickly made clear to us that you don't get many sharks here in early summer, and that nervous Irish bathers can expect to remain happily unmasticated until August or September, when blue sharks - which, of course, almost never eat people anyway - do make occasional visits to our western seaboard.
But, if such a beast were to make an early appearance it might very well do so in the vicinity of Clew Bay, Co Mayo, where the indomitable Mary Gavin-Hughes, the only female skipper of an angling vessel in this country, would be the woman to haul it from the sea. (Conservationists can be assured that, having thus established our mastery over nature, we would have thrown the unfortunate creature back.)
Sea angling is more of a blue-collar activity than its tweedier freshwater equivalent. As a result, when in Mayo, the sport's wind-blasted enthusiasts tend to stay in places such as Newport's Black Oak Inn, an unpretentious, decently priced guesthouse which serves robustly garnished steaks the size of the Isle of Man.
We enjoyed our time in the Black Oak, and its utilitarian rigour helped us in our efforts to cultivate an aura of swarthy purposefulness. But if you have money, and are prepared to allow dinner to take up half your day, then Newport House, which peers down its nose at the Black Oak from the other side of the Newport River, is where you and your vassals should park your steamer trunks.
Originally home to a branch of the O'Donel family, Newport House, a Georgian pile owned since 1985 by Kieran and Thelma Thompson, who run it as an opulent country house hotel. With its magnificent staircase, huge bedrooms and (this is important) cluttered billiard room containing a full-size table, the house allows visitors the opportunity to imagine themselves guests at a 1930s society party. At every turn we half expected to stumble across a Belgian detective making gnomic remarks about the pearl-handled letter-opener embedded in some débutante's sternum.
Should you be of a more effete class of angler than me or my equally Maileresque companion, then the private fishery of the Newport River and numerous blissful lakes await your flies. The surprisingly pointy Croagh Patrick is there to be scaled. Achill is within half-an-hour's drive. And Clare Island, bouncing with stringy, crazy-eyed sheep, is just across the bay. Though how any guest at Newport House manages to work up the energy to see any of these sights after grazing through the magnificent five (six? seven?) course dinner remains something of a mystery.
The hotel provides two types of hamper for the hungry angler: a smaller, sandwich-based affair, which we requested (and enjoyed) and a larger, more formal business, which a visiting English professor ordered for his party and which some stupid Irish Times journalist and his Euro-something friend mistakenly threw into their car, thinking that in such elegant places two enormous wicker baskets of food were what any party of three might reasonably expect.
In our defence, we were distracted by nervous apprehension. Mary Gavin-Hughes, her name often spoken in whispers, has a considerable reputation in the area. Mary grew up on the now uninhabited Clynish Island where her late grandfather, a Mayo man of the old school who weaved his own baskets and made his own sails, taught her the ways of the sea before she lost her first baby tooth. She has welcomed a number of celebrities onto the 33-foot Shamrock 1. Lucy "Xena" Lawless was onboard recently, and Paul Young, who it seems is now some sort of fishing journalist, has also hung his hat on its mast.
Now, being modern men with progressive views, neither John nor I would admit to feeling in any way challenged in our masculinity by the fact that the skipper was a woman. Nonetheless, I felt it vital to look at my earthiest and most threatening when climbing aboard. With this in mind, I forwent cologne, applied only the slightest smear of deodorant and - hoping to summon up the spirit of Robert Shaw in Jaws - decided not to shave. Wearing stout boots and green anorak, I felt myself radiating stinky, primordial aggression.
I'm not quite sure when I began throwing up, but I know that I didn't stop until I got back to blissful dry land, a section of the planet under which I would, on my death, like to be very deeply buried thus ensuring that - having here declared my intention to never set foot on another boat - no part of me again passes over water before I rot.
It is important to state that no blame for my incapacity should be attached to Mary, whose patience and professionalism were beyond measure, or to her boat, which, from my vantage (bent over its side, watching its reflection in the spewy water) seemed to be a fine, sea-worthy vessel.
Indeed, on the few occasions I was able to stand upright I could tell that anybody who wasn't a spineless pantywaist would have had a fine time learning about the various species of fish we were plucking from the depths.
I caught two red gurnards - spiny, supernatural-looking beasts with heart-breakingly reproachful eyes. Mary caught two dabs - flatfish apparently - and a great, thrashing pollack with skin as slimily green as well, me, I suppose. (John, on whom the burden of conversation had entirely fallen, proved to be a mere mackerel magnet.)
"Look at that," Mary shouted as a dark shape dodged a partially-digested nugget of Newport House's black pudding in pursuit of one of her dabs. "It's a tope!"
The utterly hopeless way in which, damp-lipped and slope-shouldered, I feigned interest finally persuaded her that it might be time to take the weedy, gutless, hamper-thieving city folk - John now conceded that he too was feeling a little uncertain - back to the safety of the shore. Considering that the weather was about as untroubled as it gets in this part of the world, she really was awfully nice about it.
Paradoxically, despite conceding that I have had more fun at the dentist, I would recommend the Gavin-Hughes experience to anybody whose constitution is, unlike mine, more robust than that of a hummingbird. Mary provides all the equipment you need and has an uncanny ability to locate any species of fish to which Clew Bay plays host.
Given that there is not much more to the actual fishing business than dangling and reeling-in, she could (I am, of course, speculating here) make the robust, healthy amateur feel like a seasoned predator.
The final indignity came when, upon arriving home, I typed "tope" into Google and learned that the shadowy form I had glimpsed was "a slim-bodied shark with five gill slits". So I had indeed looked at a shark and a shark had looked at me. Somehow I suspect it did not feel humbled by what it saw.
Contacts and rates: Mary Gavin-Hughes, Clew Bay Angling, Newport, Co Mayo (098-41562, 086-8062282, . Rates from €45 per person for a day's fishing. Newport House's summer rates are: June: B&B €124 (€179 with dinner). July: B&B €135 (€190 with dinner). See 098-41222, www.newporthouse.ie.The Black Oak Inn (098-41249) charges €50 for B&B in a double room, €30 for a single.
Donald Clarke travelled to Co Mayo as a guest of Fáilte Ireland, the National Tourism Development Authority. For more on holidays in Ireland, see www.ireland.ie. Our summer series - in which Irish Times writers turn tourists in their own land - continues next week when Frank McNally and family holiday in a horse-drawn caravan.
AN ISLAND CALLED CLARE
If shark fishing seems a little extreme, a visit to Clare Island might be more appealing. The island, at the opening of Clew Bay, is famous as the stronghold of the legendary 16th-century chieftain, Grace O'Malley. The castle from which Granuaile, as she was then known, launched her piratical campaigns still overlooks the harbour where two companies - Clare Island Ferries and O'Malley's Ferries - serve the mainland.
With a population of 160 (and falling, according to those we spoke to) the island is mainly concerned with tourism, fish-farming and taking care of the frisky sheep, which, on our visit, flung themselves with lunatic abandon from rock to rock like raggedy baboons. Indeed, to two city fellows who rarely come across a beast without a collar, Clare Island proved to be as exotic as it was beautiful. Vast rhubarb-like plants and outcrops of (can this be correct?) bamboo brush up against winding roads that take you from the sandy beach to the 12th-century Cistercian Abbey and on to the Napoleonic signal tower.
Those wishing to explore the island fully will find three decent bed and breakfasts and a scenic - if rather exposed - camp site. Clare Island Ferries and O'Malley Ferries operate from Roonagh Pier, Co Mayo (about 30 minutes drive from Westport). The fare is EUR15 return. Further information: www.anu.ie/clareisland/