North Atlantic Skyline - - Photographs from the west of Ireland (Galway, Mayo, Clare, Limerick, Roscommon and even Leitrim)

Fry-up of the Gods

I was driving through the pretty village of Newport a few weeks ago, when I spotted a butchers shop. It proclaimed, on its window, that it sold national award-winning sausages. Whoa! That's fighting talk. Now, there is another butcher in the west (Loughnanes in Loughrea), that has won such a prize and I have to say that their sausages are very special. So I went into the shop, asked for said pork product. He disappeared to the back for a minute and when he came back, he seemed a little offhand. It turned out that the shop is run by identical twins (who were also dressed the same) so there followed a scene almost as funny as Eric Sykes walking around with a plank of wood, as hilarious as the entire run of Batchelor's Walk - Ok, not funny at all. Anyway, I got the sausages and they were not bad at all. But worthy of the title of all-Ireland sausage ? Hmm. And now there is a new competitor - Tesco have introduced Irish sausages with sun-dried tomato and rosemary. Now, normally I'd be the first to condemn such fancy-dan tomfoolery, but damn it if they are not delicious. Damn these faceless international conglomerates and their shameless manipulations. Damn them all!