Earlier this month The Irish Times published a great little guide to Sligo, in collaboration with Failte Ireland. Lots of times you read this type of thing and, as a local, don’t recognise the place you live, for good or bad reasons. This one was different though, Not only did I recognise the place they were describing, but it covered nearly all the best bits of Sligo that I include when I’m in my own tour guide mode with visiting pals. Lots of my Top 10 things to do in Sligo made an appearance, in one guise or another, but I see the Magic Road alluded them once again, it must be the magic….

The supplement, which you can download via the link below, or by clicking on the image up top, is a great reference guide, and would make an excellent pocket guide for any type of traveller. I was particularly thrilled to see so much culture and lifestyle entries; great foodie recommendations, culture summaries and a special focus on Sligo Music, which is in abundance in all forms in Sligo town and county, as a quick glance at sligomusic.ie will usually show you.

I think the publication was the first time, or one of the first times, that the new Sligo brand was used;“Sligo, Set your Spirit Free”.  It’s a brand I really like, and I’m usually very critical of visual identities, especially the tag line. This one however, also seems to concur with the Sligo I know, a place that can set your spirit free in lots of ways; surfing, golfing, eating, listening to music, walking, visiting arts and culture events, or ancient historic sites, or just contemplating the landscape. The actual coloured text took me a few minutes to settle into, but it’s really grown on me. For some reason it immediately reminded me of Dakar’s photos of Sliglow (a project for Culture Night Sligo 2010), something in the free-flowing, yet painterly aspect of the font. It could reference anything from cave painting to street art and all that came in between, while still looking very natural and “of nature”. When I looked up the official line it said; “The brushstrokes are inspired by the paintings of Jack B Yeats, the vertical limestone features of the landscape and the crashing Atlantic waves.” which is even better; Sligo’s three big selling points; landscape. culture and water all rolled into one. Well done Zero G

Download the pdf: Sligo – Irish Times 6th July 2011

Gotta love this – a filmaker captures the San Fran to Paris flight via 2,459 photographs – roughly one every 2 miles- including a trip through the aurora borealis. Pretty magic.  Click through to his vimeo page for info on the camera, how he shot it etc

Thanks to Judi for passing on the clip link

I had visitors this past weekend so I took my own advice and brought them to to The Model, followed by lunch in Hargedons, for a shop around Castle Street (to Kate’s Kitchen for a can of illy and some Rooibos Tea for the South African), then to Cafe Arabica for some take away coffees and then a drive up to the Horseshoe.

And we had a great old time of it. For the first time I didn’t get lost finding the horseshoe, and we even found the Magic Road! which we rolled up and along for ages and ages while I freaked them out with my “look- no feet” move. The visitors were from Dublin and South Africa and were blown away by beautiful Sligo. We stopped to take loads of pics, and were even greeted with that most irish of photo op’s – the Sheep coming down the road (pic above) in picture perfect order.  the mountains were spectacular, the light was great, we stopped at every ruined cottage so they could take pics, and the view out to the ocean as you come to the end of the horsehoe is mind-blowingly good on a clear day.  I even popped the car out perfectly in Grange (followed the Yeats County feather pen sign) but the only downside was not having enough time for that pint in Langs- we were trying to make John the Fish back in town before he closed, but were rewarded with great salmon and scallops in return, and I was rewarded with a ” you live in a beautiful part of the world” statement which is the best accolade from a visitor. Well done Sligo

(I’ve more pics on flickr but they are only phone ones so not great quality)

Amazing weekend was had in Kilkenny at the Cat Laughs Festival this year which I have been meaning to blog about for weeks but the volume of work ever since has put paid to that notion.  However, a round up is needed for posterity and for a great critical round up with some ace writing head to Peter Crawleys review in the Irish Times – sounds like we were very much at the same festival -even though I got to about a third of the gigs he did, but then he is on the freebie press ticket.

I’ve been going to Kilkenny for 5 years now- from when I started programming comedy for the model- and usually run around to as many shows as my pocket can handle and my head can take. For the fits few years it was about genning up on the best irish comics and the newbies coming up so I could gen up for the comedy club, then it became about international acts as I knew what the irish ones were all about, and this year was a gloriously calmer affair as I wasn’t technically programming at all and could do it at a holiday pace.

Kilkenny has always been a girls weekend for me – all that laughing and drinking and great food and nice hotel rooms seems seems a good fit- and this year was no different as three of us bunked in one fab room and made a great weekend of it – here are the highlights 

1. Weather.  OMG it was outstanding. In my memory it always is for Cat Laughs of course but this one was like being in another country. A weekend like this a year will definitely see me right.
2. Foodage. As always Kilkenny does not disappoint on the culinary front. Outstanding meal and service at Zuni, and more of the same with the great late night supper menu that Fleva do for the festival.  The people that run that place could not do better, chatty, great service, happy to accommodate late eating and menu re-arranging. Go there. Oh and new kid on the block- Grapevine. Excellent tapas, great wine, brilliant owner.
3. Gigs. Of course the gigs are the real reason for going. This year we just took in two and a movie so hard to pick highlights but Kathleen Madigan was great and the Hans Teeuwen gig was an experience like no other.  Peter describes it far better than I but the great thing about it is the tension moment when you realise a) this is his act, it’s on purpose and it’s not getting any “better” and b) well over half the audience are hating it and not getting it and stressed and will either walk out, heckle or stew in their seat hating every minute but not having the balls to leave, or maybe hoping it will somehow get better.  The tension of that moment, which gets replayed around the room every few minutes as people decide which camp they fall into, is a deliciously stressful and funny thing.  In fairness- it is more performance art that comedy, and if you had paid your 30euro expecting to roll in the aisles you have every right to be angry, but if you want a whole chunk of post-modern comedy then there you have. I”m still not sure if I love it or hate it but I do know I’m going to check him out again in Edinburgh to find out.
4. A Film with Me In It. Me being Mark Doherty and not Stranded of course. This was a brilliant way to spend a few hungover hours on saturday afternoon in the Parade Tower. Delightful slice of black comedy (if black humour can be delightful?) that made me laugh out loud and contemplate my moral compass and Dylan Moran’s brilliance.
5. Kilkenny RiverCourt Hotel. A revelation (we usually stay at the Ormond). Great rooms, comfy beds, nice staff, great breakfast (crap carvery meals the rest of the time but) and acres of outdoor drinking and lounging space with a spiffy view of the castle. Oh- and 2e parking for guests all weekend. sweet.

Downsides? the 3.5 hour cross country drive back to Sligo through every little town known to man (there is a townplace called Swan in this country) and having to go back on the Sunday and miss the football match with stellar commentary by Karl Spain.

Magic weekend. Why more people don’t make it a regular calendar date I’ll never know.

Kilkenny Sunset

Ah Belfast. A few days before heading up there at the weekend I asked around for tips on places to go, pubs to hang out in, places to eat and whatever and I got at best resounding silence, and at worst a selection of comments about how crap Belfast is and how little there is to do there and how impossible it is to have fun. Not true.  It is tough to seek things out and the atmosphere can be a bit testing at times but fun places there are if you look hard enough.

Myself and a friend were being entirely unpatriotic and heading up to avail of the sterling prices and the lower VAT rate (this is your own fault Messers Lenihan and Cowen, you only have yourself to blame) When you shop mostly in English clothes chains, and you see the swing tag with the heavily inflated euro price sitting alongside the sterling one you start to get to thinking.  Once I remembered there was an IKEA there too I was sold.

We headed at the very early Saturday hour of 9.30am and were up in Belfast and out in the new shopping centre: Victoria Square, by 11.30am.  It’s great- very like a mini Dundrum with a great selection of high end high street shops like House of Fraser, Reiss, LK Bennett and Karen Millen mixed with the stalwarts H&M and Topshop with Urban Outfitters round the corner.  There’s a lovely designer shop called Cruise that stocks Marc Jacobs, Chloe, Vivienne Westwood and that sort of thing.  I was in the market for an outfit to wear to the middle brothers wedding so it was perfect.

Day of shopping over it was the (monumental as it turned out) turn of the Rugby which we watched from a brilliant old pub called Bittles. Squeezed in the door to find a traditional pub packed with older men watching the match on a giant flat screen.  Perfect. We created a little fort of shopping bags on the floor and shouted and drank along with the best of them.  And boy what a game! Drama to the very end.

Match over we headed for the hotel- Tara Lodge- which is back out University direction.  It was recommended by a work colleague and is the top visitor pick on trip advisor and it’s easy to see why.  A small hotel which is clean and nicely decorated (in that ubiquitous “modern hotel/bachelor pad” style) it is also unbelievably cheap at £85 for a double room B&B on a Saturday night. The bedroom was really big, the views out the window at night were great and the staff were super helpful- oh and there is free parking and a great brekkie!

There’s plenty to do in that area in terms of pubs and eateries as it’s the prime student spot, but we headed for the bright lights of the city.  A recommendation for Shu didn’t work out as it was fully booked, so we decamped for Ten Square but it was packed too. We’d passed a restaurant called Roscoff on Linenhall Street in the taxi but the Ten Square doorman said it was pricy, and we were cold, so we went round the corner to the Apartment. We maybe should have tried Roscoff.  The Apartment calls itself a hip trendy bar, which is always a sign of trouble in my book.  It is in a good spot overlooking the civic square thingy and the Belfast eye, but it is a funny old place.  The food is actually grand (but they stop serving at 9pm) if unexciting, but the music is loud and the place is packed with dressed up 25 year old girls and little or no men in sight- how does that work? The girls look like they’ve walked off the pages of Grazia and are all in skirts/dresses and heels and throwing back the cocktails but not a man to be found…weird. Maybe they come out later?

Our waiter recommended the “Cathedral Quarter” so we hopped a cab and on the cabbies advice tried The Cloth Ear. So this is where all the men were at! Place was packed with them -maybe the rugby effect?- and we couldn’t help thinking they didn’t get the memo that the ladies were all to be found across town.  We stayed there for a few and watched an intriguing queue of people across the way trying ot get into the Spanaird.  Decided against exploiting that one. Amazing how a typeface can put you off a place without ever going in…an Isolde’s Tower type pub we’re guessing.

Keen to test out the full potential we tried the trendy looking pub across the way.  Very London-ey and can’t remember the name. Weird table arrangement and a very bright bar…felt a bit like being down the back of Ron Blacks- in fact the whole strip seemed really Dawson Street like.  We turned on our heels and wandered back out and through a combination of asking people and following likely looking folk down the street (not always the best idea!) we struck gold with Muriels.  We had to wait about 15mins to get in but it was worth the wait.  A great little café/bar place it reminded me a lot of the old library bar in lilies crossed with Mr. Pussy’s (and now I am showing my age!!).  It was full of mismatched antique chairs and arm chairs, chandeliers and flock wallpaper with washing lines of fancy bras and pants strung up everywhere. Whole thing felt cosy and decedent and the sort of place you could get lost in a haze of absinthe and not emerge for days.

Crowd seemed the right sort, friendly and laid back and trendy without being too try hard (not a Karen Millen dress in sight) and the tunes were great. Bar staff were painful- one half were good looking and aloof, the other half snippy and easily distracted, but that could just be my ordering curse kicking in.

Wishing we’d found it earlier we had to head for our Leaba’s after one drink but a chat with a girl in the loos (that’s why we take so long in there- all the chatting) seemed to give the idea that this was one of the few spots worth checking out.  Others she recommended were Malmaison and the Cockerel just down the road.  They’re going on the list for the next trip.

The Sunday we got up for brekkie and got out to IKEA for just before 12 to discover it doesn’t open till 1pm!! What?!  Cleverly though the restaurant  opens at 11.30am and the showrooms open for “browsing” from 12noon with the tills opening at 1pm. This is kind perfect cause it takes at LEAST an hour to do the showrooms unless you are very sure what you want.

IKEA is such a masterclass in effective marketing and the powers of persuasion. I am so susceptible that I have to really watch myself but it effectively removes any barrier to buying. The Showrooms wind about so that you have to go through them all, room by lovely room, lest you miss something or get lost. The music of over the PA is punctuated with reminders that IKEA cares about your home and puts your home first and suddenly you’re wishing for a giant house so you can find a place for all this great cheap furniture!  The Market floor with all the pick-upable cheap ass kitchen wares (glasses 49p!, electric scales £5!) and bedding and rugs (£40!), storage, flowers, frames, it goes on and on.  Two trolley loads and 2 hours later we shoe-horned all manner of things into the car and headed back to Dublin with tummy’s full of cheap IKEA lunches, getting back in Dublin by 5.30pm. Job well done.