cover image Pint-Sized Ireland: In Search of the Perfect Guinness

Pint-Sized Ireland: In Search of the Perfect Guinness

Evan McHugh, . . St. Martin's/Dunne, $23.95 (280pp) ISBN 978-0-312-36366-6

An Australian, McHugh has his first pint of Guinness on the ferry from Wales to Ireland and is mighty unimpressed. But after he reaches the Emerald Isle, his opinion of Guinness changes and, along with Twidkiwodm ("the-woman-I-didn't-know-I-would-one-day-marry"), he circumnavigates the island in search of the best pint. McHugh certainly isn't the first backpacker to traverse Ireland's customary tourist spots—Yeats country, the Burren, the pubs of Dublin, the Giants' Causeway, Dingle Bay—with beer on the brain. But it is the unplanned events that make the travel special. While he inserts his share of Irish lore and legend into his travelogue, his descriptions of being in a rowboat with a German bagpiper or his recounting of leading a rag-tag bunch of Italians, Germans and Australians up the sacred mount Croagh Patrick are what brings his book to life. It also helps that McHugh, who continually professes his admiration for Irish writers, has a bit of the gift of gab himself. His prose flows like a friendly barstool chat and his frequent cheeky one-liners play the foil to his nostalgic nature. (Mar.)