Speaker's Corner
Aíne Ryan
IT’S a nightmare. You’re on a family holiday. The property leasing company has already pi**ed you off by including an extra stipend for a cot and a highchair. It’s not the measly extra few euro – it’s the principle of it. You opt to bring your own cot and highchair. Surely, €600 is enough to pay for a week.
Then, when you arrive, you find the apartment could be compared to an archaeological site. Well, figuratively speaking. The toenail clippings of the last guests – along with various remnants of bodily follicles – signal recent human habitation. But, unless you’re a forensic scientist or an archaeologist, other people’s droppings aren’t very interesting. In fact, they are generally off-putting.
When you complain, the staff are very apologetic. They couldn’t be nicer. They move you – lock, stock and barrel – to another apartment. The layout is impressive. Its light-filled aspect provides an atmospheric tableau of the town’s rooftops, planned streetscapes, lush suburbs.
At last, baby down for the night, you crack open that perfectly-chilled bottle of Sancerre. Sláinte. Let the holiday begin.
Six hours later, it’s the early hours and the dull thud of music in the late night bar has faded. Silence at last. Finally, you sink into an uninterrupted and deep sleep.
Well, for about an hour. “Valerie … Oh! Valerie …” Suddenly, it seems as if the apartment has become the venue for Oxegen and Electric Picnic rolled into one. Whoops … roars … guffaws … banging doors …. clanking bottles …
Turns out there’s two camper vans of revelling lads parked in the adjacent public car park. So much for that assurance of quiet.
OTHER than the traffic gridlock and chaos, of course, it was great to see a tourism boom in Westport over the last fortnight. Patently, the season has contracted, meaning that never before has the argument for making hay while the sun shines – even if it doesn’t – been more urgent.
After all, the vested interests have a lot to lose. How many hotels are there in the town? Ten. How many beds must be filled just to break even, never mind a profit? Hundreds, thousands? On top of that, how many apartments, houses, B&Bs are there?
Brand Westport is big business. But what exactly does Brand Westport entail? A high-quality niche tourism experience for the sophisticated visitor. A haven of heritage and history, tradition and culture. A gourmet oasis of aromatic restaurants and pungent coffee shops. A gateway to unspoiled land and seascapes.
Or is it the Temple Bar of Mayo? A drinking den of debauchery and excessiveness. A late-night resort for teetering packs of hens and bellowing clutches of stags. Surely, it can’t be all these things. Can it?
For this writer’s sister, her husband and toddler, Westport effectively presented itself as the holiday destination from Hades during the first week of August. Firstly, they were treated to the intoxicated rantings of a gaggle of bowsies (see above). The following night it was the abusive threats of a boyfriend who wanted to beat up his ‘f***ing c**t’ of a girlfriend and who turned on Patrick (the brother-in-law) when he attempted to intervene from his balcony window. Lastly, it was the rather shoddy nocturnal hurling skills of a family holidaying in a Hiace van that – notwithstanding impressive gel earplugs – interrupted their night’s sleep.
Of course – with the benefit of hindsight – they realise they should have booked into a less central location; a quieter spot. But shouldn’t they have been advised of that? Yes of course, they had a great time too: sipping glasses of Guinness and soaking in that special ambience in Matt Molloy’s; eating sumptuous cakes in The Creel, fresh fish in The Sheebeen; walking baby Benjamin through the ancient grounds of Westport House; inhaling the Atlantic air on Carrowniskey strand.
But, let’s talk straight here. Contending with the incessant rain on a family holiday is enough of a depressant without being showered with the Costa del Sol-like shenanigans of lager louts. Westport doesn’t need a facelift, but it may need therapy for an identity crisis.
