We walked down to the water's edge, crunching across the pebbles, and Patrick unzipped his fly.

'I swore I'd do this,' he said. 'It's out of respect.' He let a strong stream of urine arc into the lapping water.

I picked up a pebble, worn smooth and white by wind and waves, and put it in my pocket. 'I'll settle for this as my symbol,' I said.

Over a pint in O'Leary's in Eyre Street, Patrick filled me in on our destination. He'd spoken vaguely about Galway and I'd been happy to go along with that. Who, visiting the Emerald Isle, doesn't want to go to Galway? My mother had vamped the chords of the Bing Crosby song on the piano and warbled the words with an accent thicker than any Irish stew.

'We're heading for Ballintrath-inland a bit, back towards Dublin.'

'Okay, why?'

'They hold a big fair there-not as big as the one in October but pretty big and a lot of horse trading goes on. I mean, literally. The Travellers are great horse breeders and traders and the Malloys have a reputation in that game.'

'So we just bowl up, find some Malloys and say, "How're you going? We're Malloys from Australia"?'

'Something like that. Why not?'

Strange to say, that's pretty much how it worked out. Ballintrath was a well-preserved medieval town geared up for tourists and visitors. This fair was a scaled down version of the one in October apparently, but it was pretty busy with the usual market stalls, events in pubs and other venues around the town and the equestrian side of things taking place on the Fair Green-a big expanse that was slowly turning to mud under the pressure of feet and hooves.