Great story - narrator not

The story is intriguing and humorous but the narrator’s attempt at accents is distracting and it would have benefitted from an Irish editor to ensure pronunciation is accurate.

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A great listen

This is a very entertaining book full of Irish history and culture.
The narrator's accents leave something to be desired but by the end you're will him on.
Highly recommended.

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Great writing, annoying perfromance...

As with Mc Carthy’s previous book, Mc Carthy’s Bar, this is an excellent travelogue, taking in travel, drink, mad people, cultural weirdness, Irish takes on everything, English takes on everything, and bits and pieces of the terrible history between the two. It’s beautifully written, hilariously funny, and very informative.

The trouble is with the reader. OK, so his voice does actually sound not unlike that of the late lamented Pete McCarthy, but there are two very real problems that making listen to it a real chore. One is when he attempts accents; he almost always makes a mess of it, especially the Dublin accent - I'm from Dublin, so I should know. And the other is his *awful* pronunciation of many Irish words. Doheny, uileann, Drogheda, Cavan, Anthenry, bodhran and many, many others are all utterly mangled. It jars horribly. I am very surprised that the producers of this otherwise excellent audiobook didn’t get some Irish people in to correct him!

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2 people found this helpful

brilliant laugh out loud.

Loved it made me laugh out loud.
been on holiday to Ireland. highly recommended.

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A wonderful journey which never relents

In this book Pete McCarthy brings the listener on a fantastic journey across continents, with lots of wit and some beautiful descriptive writing along the way. Really enjoy his enthusiasm for meeting people and finding out things as a solo traveller.
As is mentioned in other reviews the narration is very lazy when it comes to place names and the accents are.. pretty dreadful.
This doesn’t take away from McCarthy’s beautiful book and lovely attitude. RIP.

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Entertaining and interesting too.

I wondered, at the beginning, if I might be too quickly bored by someone's pursuit of the McCarthy line(s). But, I think that was the MacGuffin. The entertainment is in the sidetracking. Great.

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The things you think when you are travelling, said outloud hilarious...

An entertaining read for anyone who is into travelling, marginally more so if you are also interested in Irish ancestors, or the pursuit of a nagging interest... Wish there were more.... gutted its finished.

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The book is great. Performance could be better.

One of my favourite books. I have fond memories of laughing out loud when I first read the book. The narrator here takes the shine off it for me. It's not dreadful, but any means, but whilst he sounds a bit like Pete, I sence a lack of connection with the author.

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?

I didn’t really understand the purpose of the book, it seemed fairly random throughout and I kept losing interest as a result.

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The Road that never ended.

A marathon listen but worth every minute. The narrator deserves a special mention too. Had Pete lived, maybe Bill Bryson would not have been as successful.

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