McCarthy's bar

This was a wildly entertaining book. A lot of people here have complained that McCarthy is “too English” for this to be a good book about Ireland but I think that's why I enjoyed it so much. I'm not Irish (unless you count ancestry like just about everyone else in America does) so this is a witty, charming look at Ireland from an outsider's point of view. Sure he has immediate family there and had been over the sea many times, but it still felt like this was the first journey and I could use this to help map out my own visit to Ireland. Who wants to see the same cities and things every other tourist does when you could take something like this book along and see a more behind-the-scenes Ireland.
I enjoyed the fact that, while McCarthy does take some undue cracks at Ireland and her people, he takes just as many cracks at himself and his own world view. This is an experienced traveler who isn't writing a travel novel, but is just talking to the reader as he goes on his own adventure. I like that he's not talking at you but to you through this, as if you're there with him. It made this book so much more enjoyable than the more academic travel books I've read before.
I would recommend this to anyone with a sense of humour and an interest in Ireland, even if to just expand their world view.

McCarthy, son of an English father and
and Irish mom, decides to travel to
Ireland to search out his roots. In
the process, he also decides to visit
all the McCarthy's Bars he runs across
during his trip. McCarthy has been
described as “an Irish Bill Bryson” and
this description is apt. Great fun.
Recommended.