WHEN the AA describe the bridle path between Galway and Ennistymon as "a rather narrow road through bleak country," they are showing diplomatic restraint. Or, perhaps it was my cold, my facial, injuries and general debility that made me look upon this portion of the trip as one of the least enjoyable in all Ireland. It was bearable up to Ballyvaughan; but then begins a section of road that emerges only from chaos at Lisdoonvarna. It includes the remarkable Corkscrew Hill" (again I am indebted to the AA for the turn of phrase) and anyone who is looking for a series of soul- destroying shocks should try this remarkable Corkscrew Hill.
It begins with an imperceptible, but nevertheless steep, straight hill. the Fire-engine appeared to be failing, and accepting the fact that it was about to disintegrate and leave me with my cold, unfulfilled obligations and my indescribable thoughts 50 miles from anywhere, I slammed it into second gear, and looked behind. The road fell away precipitously. I looked ahead. A minor mountain blocked the way.
Suddenly the road hesitated, and then, having made up its mind, dodged round through an angle of 360 degrees and made off in the direction from which it had just come. It caught the Fire-engine, myself, the loose newspapers, the stray socks, the golf balls, the unlocked suitcase and a pair of shoes entirely napping. All of us wanted to go straight, but the road would have nothing of it. We did our best to comply with its wishes, and I think I speak for all of us when I say that we made an excessively poor shot at it. Eventually we ploughed our way out of the bog, fringing the triumphant road, and continued.
We were ready for the next one, for now it was clear that we were going to go up the side of the minor mountain. As far as I can remember this Corkscrew Hill has seven hair-pin corners and seven times the road doubles straight back upon itself. The Fire-engine is not an unduly long motor car, but I only got round, those corners by skidding, the back wheels on the stony, sandy surface. Some day I will lure a hated enemy to that hill, and I'll make sure he gets there in a seven-seater Daimler saloon. He'll never get out again.
The hill was bad but the section of road that followed it was worse. For ten miles the maximum possible speed was 20 mph and even then the motorist's backbone came into his mouth, and rattled among his teeth. "Go on, break the springs and all the spokes and see if I care," I yelled, in what, I suppose, must have been delirium. I didn't want to die now but only because from the dead I might not have been able to wreak sufficiently merciless vengeance upon those responsible for this torture. Then I plunged into Lisdoonvarna, and a surprise.
Lisdoonvarna is built upon a high "desolate tableland", but it has all the staid, somewhat massive elegance of an English township dedicated to the dispensation of "the waters." Huge, solemn hotels stretch from one end of the place to the other street lamps line the steam-rolled thoroughfares. After Corkscrew Hill I was thinking uninterruptedly of something very large, very old and very fragrant but I didn't dare to ask for it in Lisdoonvarna. To get a drink in Lisdoonvarna it looks as if you would have to arrive on a stretcher with a male attendant, and even then it would be only "the waters."
There was one other thing of note in the journey from Galway to Ennistymon. Somewhere after Lisdoonvarna there is a thing called "Spectacle Bridge". The name excited me. Would it be some vast extension bridge over a boiling perilous abyss or, alternatively what? I never found out for within ten minutes or so, bowling over smooth, level and uniformly dull main roads, I found myself in Ennistymon. Either someone has moved Spectacle Bridge, there never was any Spectacle Bridge, or Spectacle Bridge, with the passage of the centuries, has collapsed. My share of Spectacle Bridge is on the market.
The Falls Hotel and (very important) Restaurant - what a lavishly- equipped oasis to find in Co Clare! Briefly, in the Falls Hotel you have a white house overlooking the Falls cascade, a bar with stools, a bed-room with restrained modern furniture and a telephone, a chef, a dart board and a shove ha'penny board and, lastly, lovely plumbing. The lovely plumbing was my undoing.
When I discovered this remarkable place I knew my opportunity had come to regenerate myself after the Rausch of the past four days. I had bought a razor in Galway and there was the lovely plumbing at my disposal. In a kind of stream-lined bath I chipped away four-day deposits and thought luxuriously of the bar with stools and the chef. The cold was breaking up and, as I put on my dressing gown and collected all the implements, I sang again. Nonchalantly I seized the key in the door. It failed to turn.
I took a firmer grip and stopped the song. I put down the razor the brush, the shaving soap, the toothpaste, the toothbrush, the nail brush and the razor strap, and went hell for leather at the key with both hands. It failed to turn. I became mad with anger, and forced the thing until one foot slipped on the wet floor. When I had staunched the blood flow I began to beat on the door with my fists. No one came. I beat more and yelled. Twenty minutes later I was leaving the Falls Hotel from the top floor by a ladder in my dressing gown and bare feet.
The serving men gathered round the foot of the ladder considerately looked the other way.
I whizzed through the hall and up to my room. The bathroom door opened and one of the serving men came out. "It turns easy enough," he said, puzzled. So was I.
That evening was queer. Two minutes away from a little Irish country town we ate food that one would be pleasantly surprised to find in a London restaurant. And after dinner we drank Pernod - Pernod in Co Clare!
It would be pleasant to end one's days at the Falls Hotel and, if you didn't watch your step, they might end with greater rapidity than you expected. The manager himself has envisaged some such possibility for in his booklet he sings: "Here is plenty to do, and a perfect place for doing Nothing! Come, rest from the racket of the Modern World escape in this Lotus land the beat of time escape and forget to return. As matter of fact, I managed to escape so successfully the beat of time that I was two hours late for my appointment with the secretary of Lahinch golf club. He must know the Falls Hotel, though.
When in the end I did get to Lahinch, there was rather a penetrating breeze, and at the end of the first four holes I was beginning to look upon the course with disfavour. Then it was explained to me that these four holes have only just been laid down, and consequently it would be unreasonable to expect too much of them as yet. Two holes later I was wishing I could play golf at, Lahinch every day.
The course winds its bewildering way through hills, valleys and chasms, and, if you don't know where to put your tee shot, or knowing, are unable to follow out your scheme, you will go round in 90 strokes without fail. There is one hole the like of which I have never seen. It is about 140 yards in length, and the green is in a cup surrounded on every side by hills. You lash straight over a mountain into this steeply-sided bowl, and you play long putts off the cushions, aiming anything up to five yards off the line. It is a stimulating experience.
The last hole possibly is the best of all. It is a long five. Two hundred and fifty yards from the tee there is a large bunker slightly to the left of the fairway. Between it and the out of bounds to the left there is a space of about ten yards. If you play up to the right there is plenty of room, but the long, narrow green is guarded impregnably on the right by bunkers. Anybody who got there in two shots might give up the game of golf, and spend the rest of his life telling rapt audiences how he did it.
I went back to the Falls Hotel for lunch, not touching the Pernod this, time and, for those readers who have been revolted by the recital of debauchery that has persisted since Bundoran, there is a good time coming of high tea and an egg, with bed at half past nine.
(To be continued)
