June 2000

Despite the many exotic places Pete McCarthy has visited, he finds that nowhere can match the particular magic of Ireland, his mother's homeland. In this book, he travels from Cork to Donegal. Travelling through spectacular landscapes, but at all times obeying the rule: 'Never Pass a Bar That Has Your Name On It', he encounters McCarthy's Bars up and down the land, meeting fascinating, friendly and funny people before pleading to be let out at four o'clock in the morning.

Through adventures with English crusties who have colonised a desolate mountain; roots-seeking, buffet-devouring Americans; priests for whom the word 'father' has a loaded meaning; enthusiastic Germans who 'here since many years holidays are making'; and his fellow barefoot pilgrims on an island called Purgatory, the author pursues the secrets of Ireland's global popularity and his own confused Anglo-Irish identity.

Written by someone who is at once both insider and outsider, this book is a wonderfully funny, affectionate portrait of a rapidly-changing country.