Pete McCarthy begins McCarthy’s Bar with “The Eighth Rule of Travel states: Never Pass a Bar That Has Your Name On It” and he certainly takes that advice to heart as he wanders about Ireland along the west coast. A surprisingly fast read for me, I found this book to be scattered throughout with humor and overall an enjoyable read. However, I don’t think this book was hysterically funny (as promised by the multiple reviews taking up most of the back cover), and I did find some portions to be a bit dry, causing my eyes to glaze over. Fortunately, those sections did not seem to be terribly long.

I would have enjoyed a map at the beginning (because I like double-checking where things are when the author mentions them), and a compiled list of McCarthy’s Rules of Travel (especially since he doesn’t bring them up in order). But, those missing pieces did not hamper my reading, and as an American reader, I did not stumble over McCarthy’s British and Irish colloquialisms, although a few took me a moment to figure out.

The part that resonated the most with me was McCarthy’s identity crisis that popped up sporadically throughout the book. McCarthy is at once both an insider and an outsider (being half English, half Irish but living primarily in England), and McCarthy’s Bar is basically his search to find out where he belongs, but also to validate his feelings of Irishness.

“So what I’m wondering is this. Is it possible to have some kind of genetic memory of a place where you’ve never lived, but your ancestors have? Or am I just a sentimental fool, my judgement fuddled by nostalgia, Guinness, and the romance of the diaspora?”

While the book is centered around this main theme, McCarthy spends most of his time drinking in pubs, trying to drive in a straight line throughout Ireland, and complaining about tourists marring the natural beauty of Ireland. McCarthy has a tendency to rely on negative stereotypes, and his seemingly constant drinking throughout the book meant some sections were difficult to follow, but could be laughed off as a drunkard’s poor memory.

I didn’t enjoy the parts where McCarthy bashed tourists for ruining the ‘untouched’ places he used to visit as a child, especially since McCarthy himself was also a tourist. Although, this is humorous in itself since near the end of the book, it’s another tourist that gives him insight into his identity crisis:

“‘Well, you’ll have a cultural inheritance learned from your family, and there’s nothing mystical about that. But in the mystical traditions and in early Christianity you have the notion of consciousness continuing from one embodiment to another. I think sometimes when people feel a connection with a place, it’s because strands of their consciousness have been there.’”

McCarthy’s Bar is not one of my favorite books, but it did give me a lot to think about. Knowing where you are from and your family’s ancestry can be a large part of someone’s identity, and McCarthy is fortunate in that he can trace his ancestry back generations. But, McCarthy’s Bar still leaves the question: How do you know where you belong? Is it ancestry alone, or does it come from what you feel inside and immersing yourself in a place? From McCarthy’s obsession with Singapore noodles, I’m unsure if Ireland really is the best fit for him.

“I suppose there’s a lesson here for me. Where’s the incentive to be frugal with life’s pleasures, to save up the pages in your book for later, if you’re going to be plunged into the darkened abyss at some arbitrary hour? If life is a book, then read it while you can. Don’t save up any pages for later, because there might not be one.”

If that isn’t enough incentive to spend all day curled up on the couch reading, I don’t know what is. Now excuse me, I have a reading challenge to finish.