The Boxty Trail: A drink to remember friends

By Frances Geraldine Fahy

Larry and Grace Fitzmaurice return from the USA to the west of Ireland to keep a pact made with a group of six now dead friends.

Accompanied by a driver, Austin, who becomes a good friend, they visit a pub dear to each friend and leave a plaque there to their memory.

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: fgfahy
• Release date: Jan 2, 2022
• ISBN: 9791220880787

Book preview

The Boxty Trail

A drink to remember friends

June 2018

At the Arrivals exit of Ireland West Airport in Knock, County Mayo, Austin Daniels, a driver from a local travel agency, held a large sign reading LARRY & GRACE FITZMAURICE USA. Presently, a tall, slightly stooped and very apprehensive elderly man and his almost equally tall and more erect wife approached him, both white haired and wearing wide jeans and denim jackets and wheeling their large trolleys. They confirmed they were Larry and Grace and shook his hand.

It never ceased to amaze Austin how much the relief of this initial contact was evident on travellers’ faces, especially the elderly. As if, since hitting the tarmac, they'd been in no-man's-land and this was their real moment of arrival. He was driving them on a four-day itinerary that was short on detail and intriguing in its vagueness: ‘A final salute to some dear friends' was all the agency’s further-information line stated. He welcomed them, introduced himself, took their bags and told them to follow him.

I'll follow you anywhere you lead me, young man, as long as you're not sprinting. Grace said, taking her husband's arm.

They dozed in the rented car on the hour-long trip to the Galway city-centre hotel and, once they’d checked in, Larry told Austin they would meet in the hotel foyer at 6 pm. They asked him to locate O’Connell’s Bar in Eyre Square in the meantime.

O'Connell's Bar

Chapter 1

Austin was waiting in the foyer at 6 pm.

Let’s go then, he said. They were glad to