JT15 - Craic Agus Ceol

The last time I was at Bristol airport I was one of 10 people in the whole airport destined for Bilbao, the world was on the cusp of losing its mind and little did I know but I was jetting directly into the epicenter of the pandemic and I'd barely make it back before El Presideñtè in Spain would lock the country down. Fast forward and I've just had to navigate at least 5,000 people in security and arm wrestle an old lady for the last bacon roll and semi comfortable seat in the airport - I've never seen it so busy.
 

Hallelujah... Life is finally back to normal and with it the good ship Jimbo Tours prepares to set sail again. All is back to normal right? WRONG.

When my early morning alarm call rang this morning and I stared down at my freshly sent boarding pass from Jimbo himself I saw a destination that raised more eyebrows than the onlookers who witnessed me slap the old gal for the last bacon roll. I am about to jet off to Knock in West Ireland.

Why is this destination such a surpirse? Well given that in the 14 Jimbo Tours that preceed this adventure we have barely set foot in Western Europe it is somewhat of a surprise that we are not only turning left out of the UK to Ireland but the furthest Westerly point we could possibly fly to in Ireland itself. In summary, we've never stuck a dot so far left on the map. It seems mankind's "new normal" doesn't respect historical JT traditions... Hence raised eyebrows.

As is customary I have no idea where we are going and who I might encounter over the next few days. A magical mystery tour of the ROI, a ferry to Iceland or helicopter to Lisbon. Your guess is as good as mine but JT15 is officially up and running and only our leader knows what is in store.

All I do know is that I'm strapped in and ready to set sail again this year and indeed every year that follows. As far as the door that I just knocked on well who knows where it will be or who will open it but over the next few days we will find out.
 

Let's just hope the old bird with a black eye and no bacon roll isn't sat next to me on the flight. Wish me luck.

Shauny G.

If your all about the destination then take a fecking flight……..We’re going no where slowly but we’re seeing all the sights.

If Frank Turner was referring to the inside of a dozen or so Galway pubs then we have truly been taking it slowly and seeing all the sights!

This is the morning after the first night of Jimbotours number 15 and I am sitting on my own having a coffee in a Galway city hostel whilst my fellow travellers sleep off the consequences of a long day yesterday. It’s raining outside and before I rise the troops to explore this vibrant city I am taking a moment to think about this tour and all the previous tours and why we do this every year and why it’s so important.

The longer the annual pilgrimage to a new city and country goes on the more it becomes less about the city we go to and more about the people and the reconnection with this little snippet of travelling life. Someone once told me in a hostel that “we travel not to escape life but for life not to escape us” and I think this is so true. Over the last 2 decades we’ve been doing this we have all changed…..some years we’ve have been happy in life and some years life has been setting us challenges. There has been relationship trouble, marriages, children, new careers,  new houses, football team promotions and relegations and at these times the tours feel and mean different things to us. It is very easy for life to get on top of us and affect us - these tours are a brief moment to stop. Think. Reflect. Move forward.

The attendees my sometimes change and the destination and activities always do but the one constant is that we are here for each other in good times and bad. No matter the destination we walk, we talk, sometimes we are silent, sometimes we sing, we process, we share our dreams for the future. It’s important , guys aren’t good at doing that and it’s not about how cold the beer is, how beautiful the churches are or how juicy the fruit and veg is - it’s cathartic.

The Dalia Lama said ‘once a year go somewhere you’ve never been before’ I intend to take the great man up in that!

Anyway we are off to swim in the Atlantic and see what surprises Galway and Jimbotours has in store for us today.

Jimbo the therapist signing out.

And like that….

It was done.

There are party towns and then there is Galway. 

2 nights in this westerly Irish city have been completed and I think I can speak for all of us when I say the experience won’t be forgotten quickly. 

The people are extremely welcoming and friendly and everyone seems to be having the time of their lives.

There are pubs a plenty and they take the time and care to ensure that the pint is of the quality that you hear about. 

The vibe was one of fun, laughs and forgetting about life for a while. 

We sampled the sea (cold), the food, (mixed) and the drink, great.

We’re now heading south to Westport via a walk up crow patrick.

I for one are looking forward to seeing what other adventures there are out there. 
 

Patch

East.

Your birth, your first day at school, your graduation, your marriage, your first Jimbo Tours, your death. These are the major milestones in a man's lifetime. 

How it's taken 15 years for me to embark on a Jimbo Tours is anyone's guess. Has it got something to do with a lack of invites? We don't know. 

Driving up from Cork to Galway my sat nav decided to play a trick on me and I ended up interrupting a funeral procession for a Cork GAA legend. Was it the sat navs fault, or is it coz I missed the exit off the roundabout? We don't know. 
This, coupled with a series of concerning engine warning lights that appeared on the dashboard display in the car, meant that the journey to my first JT had been an eventful one. I mean, as if I wasn't anxious enough already. 

The car made it to Galway and I hooked up with my JT companions. And what a fine bunch of gentlemen to guide my through my first tour. Jimbo, Shauny, Patch and Steve. The Expendables. 

We set off almost immediately for a walking tour and to visit the famous cathedral. Passing the first pub, Jimbo flips a coin. Heads, we nip in for a pint. Tails, we go to the cathedral. You can imagine my disappointment when the coin toss resulted in a Heads, but in went for a pint, begrudgingly. Did Jimbo rig the coin toss? We don't know. 

It was over this 1st pint that 2 things happened which set the tone for the weekend. Jimbo delivered facts about Galway, including why the city is known as the tribal county. I can't quite remember it, but you should ask Shauny G, coz he was definitely listening. 
The second thing that happened was a bombshell, that nobody saw coming. Patch declared, outrageously, that the Arctic Monkeys and Blur are better that Oasis. It took every fibre of self control and discipline in my body to stop myself from smashing him in the face right there and then. 
Still reeling from this, and after googling local mental asylums to drop Patch off in, we moved on. What followed was the mother of all pub crawls. 
Jimbo had done his extensive research. Or was it that he just picked random pubs as he saw them? We don't know. 

We watched the Champions League final (City beat Inter 1-0, I think....) Jimbo had been missing for about half hour, and just when we were about to phone the guards he returns, bag in hand. My first JT happened to coincide with my birthday, so the contents of Jimbos mystery bag was a Galway jersey from the 4 boys, an absolute treeeeeeeat which I bloody love. 
More pubs were visited and the night was rounded off with the worst kebab of all time. 
Jim, Shaun, Patch and Steve headed off to Westport the next morning. Although it's a good job Patch wasn't driving as they would have headed South and ended up in Cork with me. 
Those pesky engine lights were on in my car the whole drive back, but the motor made it back to Cork in one piece....unlike my body. 

We never did make it to the cathedral. Does Galway even have a cathedral? We don't know. 

Although I was in the tribal city for a mere 24 hours, we packed a hell of a lot in. I can see why Jimbo Tours has been such a resounding success over the last 15 years. I will be back...if invited. 

As for the specific details of our time in this Oasis in the west of Ireland, well, its all a bit of a Blur. 

Thank you to my 4 travelling companions, I love you all. 

A Kiely, signing off.....for now...

As I awake in Galway with a very sore head I can take solace in the fact that at least I’m not sharing the bottom bunk bed with Jimbo unlike Patch.  There were some heated negotiations in the early hours of the night before as to who would get that short straw which did not go Patch’s way but ultimately it made no odds as both were comatose for the night anyway thanks to the heavy dose of stout consumed in the hours prior. 

There was no time for Jimbo’s cathartic reflections this morning unlike the day before as we had to bid our birthday boy mystery guest Andy farewell and then hit the road for this years mystery city… Westport.  

The journey to Westport would include a brief stop at Croagh Patrick “Ireland’s Holy Mountain”.  Now there is in an irony in that tag line for the mountain because en route around many winding roads Jimbo was instructed by Patch to initiate an emergency stop in the car on a very rural road and promptly leant out of the car and began to say “Oh My God” many times alongside some nasty sounding noises… I’ll let you fill in the blanks. 

We eventually made it to the mountain and I was immediately struck by what a special place it is, that is of course after I quickly shut down any suggestion of climbing the fecking thing.  You see this is a famous spot for pilgrimages and legend has it that some headcases do it barefoot - the only pilgrimage I had planned for the day was to get into every pub in Westport!   We did have a wee saunter up to see the holy statue and even from that very brief hike up the views of the mountains and sea were stunning as our pictures try to do justice below. 

After Patch’s almighty bravery in jumping in the ocean in Galway I demonstrated a more mild version of dipping my feet in the Westport waters before insisting that our own pilgrimage needed to begin urgently if we were to stand a chance of completing it and seeing all those majestic pubs.  I shall return to that mountain one day and have a go at it… maybe. 

Now the eagled eyed readers of this years blog will have noticed that this years tour name is written in Gaelic.  “Craic agus Ceol”translates to “Fun & Music” which is a fitting strap line given there is a folk music festival on in Westport during our stay.  Needless to say both fun and music were consumed in enormous quantities alongside a certain traditional black Irish refreshment, (well apart from Patch’s penchant for Sauvignon Blanc) and given this is a pilgrimage after all it was fitting that half way through our leader shocked the locals and walked on water across the river that runs through Westport.  

It’s fair to say I’m a massive fan of Galway, Westport and Ireland as a whole.  It’s impossible not to have a good time out here and every door you walk through you know you will be met by the likely view of revellers enjoying each others company whether they’ve known each other their whole life or just the last five minutes.  Also if you’re lucky towards the end of the evening you might even catch a glimpse of a certain young man from Lurgan having a cheeky Power Nap in the corner of the pub.  Seriously though, I truly believe that if the whole human race had a sprinkle of Irish in it then we would all be better off. 

So that’s that, another tour in the bag, more dots on the map and memories for a lifetime. Thanks a million Ireland.  You’ve been a timely reminder that we should all smile a bit wider, laugh a little louder and be kinder to each other.  

Until next year my travelling comrades.  Sláinte. 

Shauny G. 

Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans sang John Winston Lennon. 

A theme that could be applied as the essence of Jimbo’s tours, but definitely was relevant to moi and the man himself, Jimbo. 

This is because we had a little unexpected, extra romantic night together in a small wee town called Swinford.

Which, as you’ll find out below, has a proud history within Jimbo’s family, stretching back many generations for Jimbo’s family.  

It went like this.

We arrived at Knock early very very early. Not a typical theme that runs through Jimbo tours. 

We were tired, but felt we came, we saw, and we conquered Galway, and Westpoint (or did they conquer us?).

All looking forward to our beds at our homes. 

We dilly and we dallied, tried to cheer Shaun up who was not looking forward to a trip to the capital the next day, and shared his feelings on this matter fairly expressively. Let’s just say that when he left, we knew he would rather not go. 

Jimbo and I got on the plane to leave at 3.50pm, happy days. Until they started to say it was delayed due to biblical downpours in the Luton area. 

Not cool, but we were confident the storm would pass. 

We wait on the tarmac.

We wait some more.

And some more.

The crowd began to get restless. It’s about 7pm at this point and we’ve been stuck on the plane for about 3 hours.

We ask the crew what is happening. It was like speaking to a toddler just about to throw a tantrum. We got nowhere fast. They were useless.

Crowd became more restless.

Then we get told that the plane can fly but the pilot can’t fly the plane, as his gone over his legal limit timewise. Their solution they tell us, is to get 2 pilots from Dublin to drive over. It’s a 3 hour trip. The natives weren’t happy. 

They they said go into the terminal where an hour later, they tell us our chances of getting out that night were terminal. 

Cue mad dash to get hotels. Jimbo, salmon leaps like I’ve never seen before. Boom, books a hotel in Swinford. Not easy, there is nothing around Knock, it’s very small and miles from anywhere. Legend. 

Next challenge. Getting there.

Cue waiting outside for a cab. We got chatting and a lady said her brother could give us a lift there. Anthony, was the brother. You legend Anthony! (another theme in Ireland is how nice everyone is, this helps prove that point).

Anthony drives like Lewis Hamilton which I thought could be interesting for my delicate stomach (see Blog 3!) but we made it drame free.

Now Swinford is where Jimbo’s mum Mary grew up. So finally after we settled down having spoke to Stephen, the chattiest hotelier in the world, we thought it would be remiss of us if we didn’t head for a few guinness, when in Rome and all that. 

We walk into the bar. 

Order, and well, reflect, which I think is the most appropriate word to use here. 

We get talking to the guys behind the bar. Jimbo’s says his mother grew up here, Mary Doherty. He says, I remember her well. A little glint of joy appears in his old eyes. I say nothing. 

3 beers later, one on the house, thank you very much, we head back, praying we leave the next day.

We check out, have another interesting meal with service not too dissimilar from the Ryanair crew the previous night and on we head back to Knock for the second time.

We fly, no problem and arrive in Luton. 

An experience I wouldn’t want to have again necessarily, but when life gives you lemons, let’s make some lemonade.

Until next time, out.