Westport offers a step back in time to slower, gentler Ireland

American student in Ireland sees Ireland's past in County Mayo

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Matt Molloys: Authentic taste of Ireland in Westport's famed Matt Molloys pub

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I’d been promised a glimpse into how Ireland was in the 19th Century, and “a view of Ireland most Yanks never see,” by an old friend from Chicago.

He was coming over to Ireland to visit his cousin who lives in a small town called Drummin, just outside Westport, County Mayo.

The timing was a bit difficult since a time during the week worked best for him I had only two free days in the middle of the week.

The train ride was no short venture but still it seemed worth it. Both Yeats and Synge adored the West of Ireland, and the area is rich with folklore.

So after some difficulty with the Irish Rail System whose website would not let me buy a ticket online and whose phone put me endlessly on hold, I finally managed to successfully purchase a ticket from Dublin to Westport.

More trouble ensued on the trip to Heuston Station, mostly a fault of my own because I missed the stop and then hadn’t left enough time to allow for such errors so had to frantically search for a taxi. Big mistake.

A ride that would have cost me less than $5 in Manhattan cost  €10 in Dublin. For that price I could have taken a cab from Greenwich Village to Brooklyn. Instead we had driven the equivalent of the distance of the Flat Iron district to Grand Central.

The only thing that made that expenditure worth it was that my taxi driver used to live in Hoboken, NJ and was the headwaiter at the Plaza hotel for 11 years. Once again, I’d found yet another Irish person who’d lived, worked or studied in New York. It seems that everyone I meet has some story about a friend or relative who lived there. I wanted to ask him what made him become a taxi driver but he didn’t seem too amenable to such questions.

The train ride was long but thankfully uneventful. As soon as I got off the train I was immediately struck with how quaint and charming Westport was. Bigger than Maynooth, but nowhere near as big as Dublin, it had enough pubs, shops and restaurants to offer a variety of choices without being overwhelming.

One of the few planned towns in Ireland, Westport features an abundance of Georgian architecture and a tree-lined promenade (the Mall) that reminded me of a miniature version of Paris.

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