Strandhill

The gulls were flung about madly and we just thought...

Ah, fuck it, and tall Paul held the box aloft like a sacrificial offering, and it was Barney, I think, whose trembling fingers reached up and tipped back the lid's hinge, and at once Chuck Boyle Murphy was on the Strandhill air, rising as if by dark magic from the box as a single eminence.

like a twisting and twirling genie of bone-white ashes like a gin or lapping sprite of the shoreline turning and twisting away from us in the grainy afternoon light and now he was risen and now he was gone The small plate scene in Strand Hill is excellent and between the three gastropubs we visited we must have put away a couple of dozen of the little devils.

It turned into quite a boisterous evening actually and we were in surprisingly good cheer over delicate saucers of lemony squid and pale trembling burrata and big fat sexy greek olives brazenly flecked with chillies and feta and garlic and oh a most memorable hank of braised lamb's liver that had been interfered with in some highly innovative fashion We almost relaxed I believe.

And they'd played Portrush, Royal County Down, Ballyliff in both courses.

And I was chatting to them for a while, and I was asking, like, what was their favorite courses of the trip? And they said, number one, Enniscrone, number two, Strandhill, and number three, Cairn.

And that was ahead of Portrush, and it was ahead of Royal County Down.

And I just wouldn't expect it to be in that kind of area.

And I kind of grilled them on it, like, what did they like about Strandhill? And they were talking about the fun, that it was just so quirky.

And they got to play...

the shots that they had heard people talking about playing, running and bumping around hills and stuff, so I don't think there's anywhere like it for that kind of stuff.

I was loving it.

He's got spotters for him now.

So this guy said he was looking for a place to swim and pointed at Strand Hill on the map.

Strand Hill is about four miles west of Sligo Town, facing straight out at the Atlantic.

It's a surf beach.

Permanent rip currents, no lifeguards, and swimming isn't allowed, and it's like it wasn't allowed then, it's not allowed now kinda thing, just because it's so dangerous.

Some of the

surf destination spots, listeners telling, how could you not have mentioned La Hinch, Strand Hill in Sligo, Mulloch Moor as well, also in County Sligo.

Yeah, two beautiful spots.

Yeah, well, where it's at for the next 10 days

Because at this hour in my life, I'm not what you'd call a long-hitter.

As I pointed out earlier with Jonathan being 55 yards outside me or whatever it was and there was lads hitting it even further than that again too but anyways so yeah so Strandhill that was lovely to win Strandhill I had won I led the qualifiers actually in Turles the first year I played and Cardboard Woman beat me in the quarter final Pat Murray went on and won the Irish won the match play won the match play close that year so 23 and then of course 24 in Kilkeel

did you beat someone who defeated the final yeah

I had a handy win in the final that day, Will.

if you played golf in ireland you know how difficult this is for the rest of your life you can play one you can play only one only golf in one of these areas unlimited budget any course any time which ones are you picking so ireland was basically split into four but not done into like north south east west kind of like north midlands west midlands or east midlands very fairly yeah i thought that was very good so i'm going to list out for you here michael a b c or d what's in them and you can only play one of these regions of golf for the rest of your life okay so a is the east and central so it's port marnock county loud the island k club royal dublin jameson drew's glenn clean castle mount juliet ross lair british bay bunclody carlo kirklow littlestown carton house paris court hermitage tullamore palmer's town heritage the castle rasala grange arclo to faris sea point synonyms mccrudden delirium i'm not going to list out the full list for all of them because they're the big hitters b then which is the south and central Ballybunion, Waterville, Adair Manor, Tralee, Dukes, Old Head, Fowler Island, Cork, Drumoland, Killarney, County of Bale.

C, then L'Hinch, Cairn, County Sligo, Enniscrone, Doonbeg, Connemara, Strand Hill, Gough, the Hawthorn, keep an eye out for that one, Westport, Galway, Port Humna, or D, Port Rush, Orcid, Rosapenna, Port Stewart, Bailiffin, Port Salon, Sleave Russell, Nairnport, New, Donegal, Critch, Arglas.

Now, remember, there's a bunch of the smaller ones there.

Otherwise, we're listing every single golf course in the country.

We haven't played Cork? Nope.

I've played Dremoland, that's 14.

I haven't played either of the other two no C then 15 haven't played Lahinch 16 played Carn 17 played Sligo 18 played Enniscro 19 played Doonbeg 20 played Connemara 21 played Strand Hill 22 played Golf of Hawthorne haven't played Westport haven't played

Westport I've been there but haven't played it