Naas, Kildare

This pub has a little surprise for you. The front room is a plain, unvarnished, old-time kind of a place, where elderly men dream over their pints in the daytime. But go through the door to the back lounge and it's a different story. Here, under a skylight, a profusion of plants reach out prettily for the light. Interesting paintings and photographs hang on exposed brick walls and the impression is one of spareness on the right side of comfort.

I was introduced to this pub when I gave a lift to an old man in a cap who was hitch-hiking beside the road. As he got into my car, I warned the old gent that I wasn't used to Irish road rules yet, that in the United States, where I was from, we drive on the opposite side of the road and we don't have roundabouts. "Ah, don't worry yourself, girl," he said airily, "I've seen it all. Sure I was a lorry driver for over thirty years."

However, after we went through several hilarious but hair-raising encounters with roundabouts, he fell quite silent, and by the time we reached Naas, I'd say he was more than ready to go to his local, which happened to be McCormack's.

You can find McCormack's in the town of Naas, Co. Kildare.

From the Appletree Press title: The Irish Pub Guide.
Also from Appletree: Irish Pub Songs.