WESTPORTED

‘One of the noblest views in the world…’ In rain-splattered flower-powered Westport you’ll hear William Makepeace Thackeray’s fulsome words intoned more often than the Rosary. The much-fêted town nestling at the edge of majestic Clew Bay and overlooked by conical Croagh Patrick—that most holy of holy mountains—is as tiny as it is tidy as cute as it is cosmopolitan. Westport is the Koh-i-Noor in Connaught’s crown a magnet not only for tourists but also writers artists and musicians from all corners of the globe. Tarry a while and you’ll soon be ensorcelled by the friendly banter cheerily painted houses music-filled pubs and traditional shop-fronts. It’s Ireland as it ought to be. And it is here a mere sling shot from the wild Atlantic that Botox—the needle-propelled elixir of youth the Finn McCool of facial treatments—is manufactured. One way or another Westport will get under your skin.