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.