By James Stone -

I used to go to Ireland on holiday as a kid and, to be honest, it was pretty dull. Hailing from Irish stock I'd traipse along with my parents every year to meet cabbage loving aunts and uncles, grandparents who thought I was the new dog and decaying members of my extended family.

But sometimes I would manage to escape the monotonous cries of 'oh haven't you grown' and go roaming the country lanes picking at foxtrot plants, making faces at the cows and, occasionally, getting lost deep within the endless corn fields.

It was this side of the Emerald Isle that I thought I'd revisit when I managed to squeeze a week's holiday in between jobs earlier on this year. And of course, this time I'd have the added hilarity of chatting and drinking the black stuff with vociferous Irish drunkards in backwater taverns.

I flew in to Dublin and was somewhat struck by the cosmopolitan character of the place. Chinese restaurants, curry houses, Italian pizzerias and plush wine bars. What was I expecting – for all Irish to still be lamenting their lack of fishing skills during the potato famine?

When I finally found a 'traditional' Irish pub and was a few pints to the good, I struck up a conversation with a local. Of course, everything's funnier in an Irish accent, but to my Gaelic friend, comedy was the least of his concerns. He was talking politics: "The British say they want democracy in the North but in 1922 they drew arbitrary voting boundaries round those six counties. How fair is that?"

"Err, good point," I countered. Perhaps this wasn't a land full of peasants, priests and pixies after all. In my 15 years away, Ireland had changed. The country's Celtic Tiger economy, which as boomed since the mid-nineties, has not only brought riches to Irish shores but has given the place a confident swagger; in 1996 Ireland reached its turning point where there were finally more immigrants than emigrants.

After a good few jars and some enlightenment about Irish nationalism I returned home to my expensive but homely B&B and got chatting to the owner who, as it turned out, was from Crosskeys in County Cavan – not far from my family's homeplace.

So the next morning I decided to expand my holiday and leave the city – I had travelled to escape the urban claustrophobia of London in the first place – but did so in a rather novel manner. I reignited my youthful passion for cycling and decided to make my way out of Dublin into the countryside on two wheels rather than four.

After a few hours I was out of the city and back travelling along the country roads that were so vivid in my memory – except now, they weren't full of potholes. As I made my way past the rolling hills and thick hedges that pocketed farmers' livestock I was reminded of those youthful days, bouncing around any fields I could scramble through the undergrowth into.

But when Crosskeys approached, I saw the crumbling walls of the town's solitary hotel, which was an annexe of its Post Office. 'Some things never change,' I thought. Opposite was the pub that I had spent so many endless afternoons sipping Pepsi and listening to my family chatter about the old days while getting progressively drunker.

I decided to enter in anyway, and, to my surprise a few of the locals recognised by face (actually they thought I was my father), invited me to join them, and brought me a pint of the blessed black stuff. I was treated like a returning Odysseus, none more so than when I stepped up and joined the live band with my (Harrow Community Centre fourth place) award winning tin whistle skills.

Joined by a bodhran, uilleann bagpipes, a fiddle and a banjo we played all night, only pausing to pop outside for a fag. There have certainly been some big changes in the country dubbed 'the land of saints and scholars', but you can always bank on the Irish eyes to continue smiling. I'll definitely be holidaying in Ireland again!

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