Hitchhiking, Wild Camping, & Music Festivals with Brinsley of Weird Ireland

SUMMARY:

This week on Travelling Through Life: A Podcast on the Go we meet Brinsley McNamara, the creator behind the wildly popular Wild Ireland. We chat about growing up a bookworm to now being a published author. Brinsley shares about moving to Germany, Spain, Edinburgh, and Nicaragua, as well as working at multiple music festivals around Europe, Ireland, and the UK. He shouts out the Canadian who introduced him to hitchhiking and some of the most bizarre places he’s wild camped. Of course, we also dove into why he created Weird Ireland.

Travelling through Life: A Podcast on the Go is a fun and quirky show from Travel with TMc that delves into all things travel and adventures from the road, in the air, and in between here and there. Subscribe for weekly episodes!

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MORE RESOURCES & LINK FROM TODAY’S EPISODE:

Horrible Histories
Time Team
Weird New Jersey
National Heritage Week (Ireland)
Púca Festival
Couchsurfing
Hitch Wiki
Nomad Wiki

CHAPTERS:

00:00 Introduction and Connection
 05:49 Introduction to Brinsley McNamara of Weird Ireland
 13:50 Early Influences: Horrible History, Time Team, and Family
 19:31 Will There Be a Weird World Account?
 22:04 Why "Brinsley McNamara"?
 29:13 First Trips & Childhood Experiences: Backseat Bookworm
 31:02 Moving Abroad: Germany, UK, Spain, Music Festivals
 33:01 Hitchhiking & Couch Surfing
 40:19 Travel Traditions
 43:28 How to Choose Where to Travel: Planning for Weird Ireland Content
 45:27 Top Trip Memories
 48:17 Scary Travel Experiences
 49:33 Language & Travel: Irish, Spanish, & German
 58:57 Impact of Tech on Travel Style:  UK Road Maps, Wiki Pages,  YouTube
 01:05:17 Packing for Travel as a Minimalist Travel Content Creator
 01:07:18 The Reality of Making a Living as a Content Creator
 01:09:30 Living vs. Travelling Abroad: Spain & Hostels
 01:10:11 Weirdest Sleeping Spot: Service Stations, Drainage Pipes, Electrical Boxes
 01:14:17 Spotify Travel Playlist: Brinsley's Choice
 01:16:08 Speed Round: Hill of Uisneach, Salty Island, Motorcycle Diaries
 01:31:53 Until Next Time & Where to Find

Transcript

Tara (00:06)
Hello, hello. Welcome to Travelling Through Life: A Podcast on the Go. I'm your host, Tara, and the founder of the blog Travel with TMc, which is where this whole adventure began over a decade ago. Travelling Through Life: A Podcast on the Go, is a fun and quirky show that delves into everything travel and adventure, whether from the road, in the air, or in between here and there. And Season 1 episode listeners will know exactly what I'm talking about.

Make sure to subscribe to Travelling Through Life: A Podcast on the Go, wherever you listen, and leave a 5-star review. Both of these things make a huge difference in helping the podcast reach a wider audience. They're also super quick and easy to do and free. So thank you so much for your support. In Season 2, my guests and I cover a wide range of travel topics again. And it's my hope as always that you'll hear something that resonates with you and how you personally travel.

and that other things will inspire you to maybe try something new. This week on Travelling Through Life: A Podcast on the Go, I chat with a man named Brinsley McNamara from County Westmeath in Ireland. He's a fascinating individual and the creator and author behind the wildly popular Weird Ireland accounts on Instagram, on Facebook, on YouTube. He's got a podcast and he's got a book. If you're watching on YouTube, you can see the book there.

Brinsley and I at this point hadn't met in person. I had reached out to him on social media a year or so before this to see if I could get his new book at that time on a trip to Ireland, which is the year that I went to the Púca Festival. If you've been on the blog, you've seen that post about the Halloween festival called Púca. And we talk about that actually in the podcast episode.

During this conversation that I had with Brinsley on the podcast, we technically hadn't met in person yet. And so I was learning a ton about him in real time, just as you will be. Since this podcast episode, Brinsley and I met up in fall of 2025. I'm recording this intro to you in January of 2026. And ⁓ I got to tag along on one of Brinsley's Weird Ireland adventures, which was phenomenal. It was great to meet him in person.

It was so great to meet his friend Seán. Hey Seán, thanks for all the music suggestions. And it was also really cool to get to experience one of the Weird Ireland things that he talks about on his account in real life. Actually, ⁓ if you're listening on the podcast, I didn't even think about this before. This is me thinking in real time. I've got a little shelf behind me here of a bunch of my travel trinkets and souvenirs.

And if you're watching this on YouTube, you're going to see me holding what looks like nothing. It's a steel ball. And it's so heavy, like getting this back in my luggage. I didn't know if that was going to be possible. But anyhow, I got to go with Brinsley to a road bowling event. And we don't talk about that in the podcast, but that is on both of our socials and that will be on my blog once I get it written down there. But anyhow, back to the podcast episode, which is what I'm supposed to be telling you about.

during our chat on the podcast. I learned so much about Brinsley. He has hitchhiked and wild camped all over Europe and the UK, which was so cool. I know so few people who have done that, so it was really neat to get into that with him. He also talked about working and volunteering at music festivals. He grew up going to an Irish language school, which as a linguist myself, I was fascinated to learn more about. And he also later learned Spanish when he was living in Spain and Nicaragua.

We also talk about the reality of making a life as a travel content creator and where the inspiration for his pen name came from. This conversation was one that I couldn't have planned. ⁓ Being that I didn't know him properly in advance, I only knew his account and his front-facing persona. And Brinsley, Thank you for having me tag along in Ireland. And to everybody listening today,

I can't wait to hear what you have to think about this episode. I think you're gonna love it. Thanks for listening and let's dive in.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (04:17)
How's it going?

Brinsley McNamara (04:18)
Hi Tara, good to

meet you, good to meet you at last. I remember you first messaged me back in I think it was October, you were in Ireland and you were keen to see if you your, know, get one of the books early kind of thing. I actually regret not giving you one because I just wasn't sure I had copies of the book, but it wasn't out yet in general. So I just wasn't sure if I could do it or not. I probably could, it would have been fine.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (04:29)
I was.

⁓ Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, no, you're grand, it's fine. I had reached out. My plans had changed last minute a few times and I'd been following your account for a while. And I thought, geez, if I could get a copy from him and maybe use this as part of my trip, that would be fantastic. But next time I'll be in Ireland in September again. So. I was. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Brinsley McNamara (04:55)
Yeah.

And you were at the Púca Festival in Athboy on Halloween? Yeah, I was there. Yeah, I remember you commented. Yeah, was

there that night. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (05:05)
I know,

too funny how we just crossed paths there. ⁓

Brinsley McNamara (05:07)
If you saw

anybody dressed up like Jason Voorhees, you know, from Friday the 13th, that was me.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (05:12)
come on, I think I might have taken a photo of you.

Brinsley McNamara (05:14)
Maybe it was me anyways. Do, please do, please do. That was a funny one. And like, it was all for a video, me and my cousin, when he dresses Freddy Krueger and I dress as Jason Voorhees. And we've been wanting to do that for years. ⁓ But when we got there, nobody else was actually in, despite it being Halloween night, nobody else, almost nobody else was in costume. Most people were not in costume. A lot of people were in the sort of...

Tara (Travel With TMc) (05:16)
That's hilarious. I'm going to send you that after our chat. So funny.

Yeah.

Brinsley McNamara (05:40)
Neo Pagan outfits, but then we were just like Freddie and Jason. So I thought that was great. So no, do look, see if you can picture it, because I'm dressed as Jason Voorhees.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (05:47)
I definitely will be looking for that after this. Too funny. Well, I'm thrilled to have you on season 2! Thank you so much for saying yes and coming on here. For those of you who are just listening for the first time or tuning into YouTube, ⁓ Brinsley runs the phenomenal Instagram account, Weird Ireland. He's also on TikTok and I believe YouTube as well.

Brinsley McNamara (05:49)
Yeah.

YouTube also, blue sky also threads also. Yeah, those ones Facebook. guess that's very small. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (06:14)
He's on all the accounts on Weird

Ireland and it is one of my favourite accounts to follow. He also has a podcast. So I'll add all the links at the bottom of this, but that's how Brinsley and I connected was through Instagram. And today we're to have our first proper chat. So thanks for being here. Awesome. Well, why don't you tell everybody a little bit about yourself, who you are, what you do, and why you started Weird Ireland.

Brinsley McNamara (06:31)
Splendid.

Well, yeah, I mean,

Tara (Travel With TMc) (06:42)
⁓ and where

you're calling in from today. Sorry to interrupt you already. Where you're calling in from today.

Brinsley McNamara (06:45)
Where I'm what?

Mullingar, Mullingar County, Westmeath. Do you know Ireland that well? Well, I mean, if you're an Athboy, you're pretty close to Mullingar.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (06:55)
Yeah, I actually lived in Dublin for a year and travelled the country for work. I worked at USIT and I've been back about a dozen times since and this fall will be probably 13 or 14 there. yeah. Yes, I have passing through. I haven't spent much time yet.

Brinsley McNamara (07:00)
Mm-hmm.

Alright, have you to Bollinger?

No, well, that's, that's where I'm from. And that's where I live. And I mean, it's pertinent enough because it's the county town of County Westmeath and Weird Ireland in it. Well, it wasn't Weird Ireland, but back in 2020, I made an Instagram account called Weird Westmeath and it still exists. It was never as big as I've got about 5,000 followers. was surprisingly more well known. Well, it's not surprising that it was more well known in Westmeath. what is surprising is even when Weird Ireland had hundreds of thousands of followers.

people would still in Westmeath, in Mullingar would recognize me from Weird Westmeath and would know nothing about Weird Ireland. That actually happened last summer a lot, which is pretty funny. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that was going years and that was our first step into making online content like that. And it was a very similar thing to Weird Ireland. The humour was there. However, it didn't start as videos. It started as just pictures and writing about interesting old stuff. And then...

Tara (Travel With TMc) (07:50)
Interesting. Yeah.

Yes.

Brinsley McNamara (08:08)
you know, 2022 went to doing TikTok videos, but there was no voice with it or anything like that. And I didn't use my name or anything. I just posted stuff. And then at the end of 2023, I was actually living in Spain on and off for 2 well, over the space of like 3 or 4 years, I was living in Spain for 2 years, just in different blocks. Like I do like not 8 months in Spain and then back here to Mullingar and then 9 months in the back, this kind of thing.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (08:13)
Okay.

Yeah, yeah.

Brinsley McNamara (08:37)
And I used to honestly gather like 6 months worth of content if I posted weekly on Weird Westmeath and then keep posting while I'm away. But I came back to Mullingar in 2023, July 2023, and I didn't have any plan. I didn't have any, there was no plans of going back to Spain. And it was actually really coming to the point where, I mean, if not already well beyond the point where I had never had any career or anything like that. I did just lots of different random jobs. I worked as a cook, worked as a Engl-

Tara (Travel With TMc) (08:44)
smart.

Brinsley McNamara (09:06)
English, what do call it? English for English language for like, you know, what do call it? ESL? English as second language. That's it. ESL teaching, did that in Spain. And I just didn't really have a career or anything like that. And I was looking at going into digital marketing or as retraining and going into software. And I know nothing about that. But very much the dream was to make something like, the name Weird Ireland, I honestly had my head since 2021. But I never did anything with it because it would have been

Tara (Travel With TMc) (09:11)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Brinsley McNamara (09:36)
a way bigger undertaking than Weird Westmeath and I wasn't even in the country that much. yeah, coming to the end of 2023, I thought it's kind of now or never sort of thing. And I thought the same thing I always think with these kinds of things is start imperfect and get better. So it's kind of like when you roll what I'd say it's like, it's like when you push a barrel down a hill and you then you try to run after and either it gets away from you or you catch up with it.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (09:42)
Right.

Brinsley McNamara (10:02)
So in January, 2024, I started the Weird Ireland profile, Instagram, TikTok. ⁓ I actually already had a really big database of videos on my phone from just years going around making videos. ⁓ And a lot of the earliest Weird Ireland videos were Weird Westmeath videos that were just repurposed. They had a narration added to them. Maybe they're edited a bit differently. And some of them I already knew were popular videos.

because I'd already posted them with Weird Westmeath and they did pretty well. So I thought, well, if I just have a new account, so you've got a new algorithm to start with, ⁓ a fresh one, if you make the, if you make sort of the, how you brand the videos very, very consistent, have a consistent opening and consistent style throughout all of them. And if, yeah, add the narration, it should pick up even better. within 7 weeks it had 200,000 followers on Instagram anyways, yeah. ⁓

Tara (Travel With TMc) (10:57)
Did you say within

7 weeks you had 200,000? my lord. I'm hiring you to do my socials.

Brinsley McNamara (11:00)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure, yeah, that's absolutely true.

Maybe

maybe yeah, I know it's, it's well sometimes if you start refreshing, not just you know, start a fresh and have a very concrete idea of what you're going to do. I was able to post every day for 6 weeks. ⁓ And it only stopped in March of 2024 daily because I went on holiday and ended up taking a few days off. But there was just unbelievable growth around that period. ⁓ It's at 320,000 now so it hasn't

Tara (Travel With TMc) (11:09)
Yeah.

Brinsley McNamara (11:31)
equal the same amount since then, it grows consistently enough, you know, and you get winners of videos every now and then. So, yeah, I don't know. It's just kind like a dream of mine to do like, you know, Tony Robinson. I guess he's kind of like the like European Rick Steves or something like that. That'd be vaguely accurate to say, I think. I'm not that familiar with Rick Steves, though. But I thought it was kind of cool to do Tony Robinson type thing and go around Ireland and make videos and stuff I'm interested in looking at anyways, you know, the book deal came out of that.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (11:45)
Okay.

Yeah.

Yeah

Brinsley McNamara (11:58)
I got contacted by a publisher early last year as well. And they were interested to see if I wanted to do a book. And I was like, sure. So then there was a turnaround to do a book, have it out in shops for November of that year. From the beginning, I wanted to do a podcast as well. once the page grew a lot, I wanted to do a podcast because certain, videos, all the Weird Ireland videos are very, they're short, they're pithy.

Um, and the information is not necessarily very detailed. Often it's not that detailed whatsoever. Um, but I think that's just to give people an interest and if they want, they can look it up themselves after. Um, but with a podcast, you can do more in depth, lengthier stuff. Uh, so I set that up. Oh, October of 2024. Yeah, that got set up, but we got, you know, I got the equipment in like July and

Tara (Travel With TMc) (12:46)
Yeah.

Brinsley McNamara (12:50)
me and the lads tried doing some podcasts it didn't work out because the first time doing it we're very very new to that so it took ages so we actually had something coming out but that's going very well consistently now so yeah it's the social media channels with short form video it's the podcast on all streaming services and it's the book which is in well you can buy it online pretty much anywhere and it's in shops somewhere I don't really fully it is in North America it did come out North America in February I just don't know to what capacity you know

Tara (Travel With TMc) (13:14)
I'll have to go on a little hunt around town and send you photos.

Brinsley McNamara (13:17)
I'd love I know I've not sent anybody on assignment yet in the USA or in Canada to find the book somewhere physically. I have a buddy in New York that probably the best place you could look. I think I'm going there actually going to New York in September so I'll have a chance to look myself. I know yeah yeah yeah I've never well no I'm sorry I have been to the USA I've been to Virginia and DC and that's it I've never been to Canada. 100 % for sure for sure.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (13:24)
Yay.

We'll be swapping continents. Yeah.

Yeah, well, when you come, you'll have to let us know. We'll take you around, show you all the Weird spots here. Yeah,

and so ⁓ I did a little reading as well, but I would assume based on what you're interested in that you've got a big interest in history and that ties into part of the travel that you do around Ireland with Weird Ireland. And where did the history bit come from for you? Did you study that or have you just always been curious in it?

Brinsley McNamara (14:05)
I did study it. I mean, I did it in secondary school. And then when I went to university, I did history in first year. I did history and I did archaeology in first year university. But I didn't carry it on. I think you might call it Liberal Arts in North America, is that what it's called? Yeah, yeah, yeah, General Arts. do Arts and Humanities, we call it. And where I did it, you did 4 subjects in your first year. You dropped 2 of them. So I dropped history and archaeology.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (14:15)
you

Yeah, yeah, like a general arts degree kind of thing. Yeah. Yeah.

Brinsley McNamara (14:34)
I don't regret it, although it seems like they would have been good ones. I kept on philosophy and geography, so that's my degree. So that's the level I studied those 2. But the interest, mean, do you know the Horrible History magazines or the Horrible History books of the TV show?

Tara (Travel With TMc) (14:47)
No, but I read an interview that you did where you mentioned them. Can you talk to us a bit about them?

Brinsley McNamara (14:52)
Yeah, I feel like they're not really that North American thing are they? They're they're they're huge in Britain and Ireland. They're from Yeah, the Terry Deary, the author is is English. They, they were a book series initially that I think might have even started in the 1980s, definitely the 1990s. But then in the early 2000s, they made a magazine series out of them, which a lot of them were I think just the book compressed. But they had you know, they were colourful. They were great illustrations. had a series of different illustrators throughout them. They did present the information.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (14:55)
No. Okay.

Brinsley McNamara (15:21)
unbelievably well, I started collecting those I think in 2004 2005 and I had all of them all 80 of them except for the third one the Egyptian one I never had that one. I just didn't it was back when if you missed a magazine and you didn't have a subscription, they're not going to put it's not going to be on the shelves again, you know, it's one of those things. So never had that one. They're online these days. So I have gone back and tried to read it. But even so I had all of those I was huge, huge into those but even before that I would have been

I can't remember. remember finding a book in my granny's house and I don't even know what the thing was. It was some kind of vague history book and I was reading about the history of the First World War and I just thought that was brilliant, fascinating. That would have been before the Horrible Histories even. And TV shows like I mentioned Tony Robinson there. Do you know Time Team? You hardly know that show, do you? Time Team is brilliant. It's like, you know, like in Kitchen Nightmares where Gordon Ramsay would go to a restaurant and he's like 3 days to turn it around?

Tara (Travel With TMc) (16:08)
No, I don't. Okay.

Yeah.

Brinsley McNamara (16:17)
I

don't know if you've seen I've watched so much Gordon Ramsay, but anyways, Time Team was a much more serious show. But what it was, was they'd go to a historical, they go to an archaeological site and they have 3 days to excavate it. But it wasn't like staged at all. was real. There were real archaeologists doing it. Tony Robinson was the presenter. Tony Robinson is not a historian. He's not an archaeologist. He's an actor and a presenter, but he had great energy in doing it all. And even shows like that. I loved that when I was a child. I love and some legend.

No, sorry, wait, the official channel, it's not some random guy, the official Time Team channel is uploaded every episode to YouTube. So you can just go back and watch all of them now. Yeah, terrific, terrific show. So I was, I don't know, I always had a big interest in that. My mom, my granddad, her dad, would have had a big interest in local history in particular. And a lot of that kind of stuff. mean, when you're reading Horrible Histories or Time Team, it's much more big thematic type history. But with the stuff my mom, my granddad like, it's extremely local history. Some...

some facets of local history in Westmeath that wouldn't be very well known, even to people in Mullingar in Westmeath just wouldn't be well known at all. And I'd be I'd be going around normally to all graveyards, I'd go with them. But there was lots of other interesting historical and kind of mythical type places as well. I remember there was a hill outside of outside of Mullingar, it's in Westmeath, it's called the Hill of Lara, not the Hill of Tara, there is the Hill of Tara. Oh, what's your name, too?

Tara (Travel With TMc) (17:42)
I've

I've been, yeah.

Brinsley McNamara (17:44)
Well, the Hill of Tara, it's not that Hill of Lara, also a name at Lara, that's, ⁓ that is, it's not, now it's not much of a hill. It's very short, but Westmeath is so flat, you actually do get a good view from it. And atop the hill is a chair, St. Patrick's Chair. Really, it's like 3 flat rocks and kind of lying against each other, but people could sit in it. And the idea was that St. Patrick had sat there on one occasion and sitting in it now will cure any backache you have. And I saw that first and like,

2003 I remember that was 2003 I saw that on a day trip with my granddad so yeah, and that wouldn't be really that well known that place at all And I have done Weird Ireland videos of that since So yeah, there was just there was a lot going there was a lot going around where I was able to take in history stuff like that. I'm interested in

Tara (Travel With TMc) (18:25)
Cool.

Yeah,

I feel like the folklore as well and things like that in Ireland are so rich, whereas that is like completely lacking in our culture here in Canada, I find anyhow, but ⁓ yeah.

Brinsley McNamara (18:42)
Yeah, I can't

comment on Canada. regarding the USA, I mean, I think it's a different type of folklore. mean, the ones in Ireland will be ghosts, by all means, there's a hell of a lot of ghosts. I wouldn't even care. There's ghost stories in America and Canada's ghost stories everywhere. It's just the biggest global thing. But whereas in Ireland, you'll have stories of saints, things that saints did. That's a big one. Not going to find that in North America as much as much. The devil, devil comes into a lot. However, in North America, you're going to find a lot of a lot more UFO lore.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (18:56)
Yeah. Yeah.

Brinsley McNamara (19:11)
a lot more Bigfoot lore, a lot more weird cryptic lore like that, which does exist in Ireland, but it's not nearly to the same extent as in as in North America. So I think it does have a lot. It's just different ⁓ and arguably a lot more recent than North American one, you ⁓

Tara (Travel With TMc) (19:25)
It's a good point.

Yeah, have you ever

considered, this just came into my head right now, but have you ever considered doing like a Weird World sort of thing at some point where considering you've already lived in Spain and you've done some travel outside and you like, you've got your, how do you say, your formula for everything that you're doing, would you take that around the world?

Brinsley McNamara (19:34)
⁓

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Well, here's the funny thing. I got the name Weird, Weird, Westmeath and Weird Ireland from there was a magazine series in the 1980s, maybe the 1980s, but definitely in the 1990s called Weird New Jersey. Yeah, yeah, yeah. These days, those there are a series of books, you can have you can buy the book Weird California Weird, I have the Weird Virginia book in my room. Because I was there Weird, you know, Delaware, can buy any of them. And they're popular.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (20:00)
Okay.

Nice.

Brinsley McNamara (20:15)
and Weird USA, they're popular like alternative, ⁓ Weird travel books in America. of all the places, the original one was Weird New Jersey. And it wasn't a book, it was a magazine. And originally, it was done in a typewriter. And it was really like 'zine kind of underground type thing. ⁓ And the makers of Weird New Jersey magazine went on to, I actually think they might still release Weird New Jersey. ⁓ But they went on to make a book, Weird New Jersey. And then from that, they made Weird Every State in the USA.

So to an extent it does exist, just specifically there. And what I do isn't even like that, the influence is the name. And I got the name from there's a YouTuber I love called James Rolfe, he's a channel that's called Cinnemassacre and he's from New Jersey. And it's from him I heard about the magazines Weird New Jersey and I thought it was a good name, especially with Weird Westmeath and then Weird Ireland. Otherwise stylistically, I've only read one of the books and...

Yeah, it's it's my ones very much my own flavour. So maybe what I have thought about doing Weird Britain because it's the next island over. I used to live there. I lived there before I lived in Spain for 3 in Scotland for 3 and a half years and in Edinburgh and in Spain, I would love to do España Extraña - that's Weird Spain in Spanish. And it's just where it sounds so good. It has the E at the beginning of both and has the N.A. at the end both. So it just I think that'd be great. And I want to do it in Spanish, but

Tara (Travel With TMc) (21:34)
Yeah!

Brinsley McNamara (21:39)
very clearly being spoken by an Irish guy who's speaking in Spanish, because think that would be just funny. ⁓ Yeah. Go ahead. But anyways, regarding that Weird Britain, Weird Spain, kind of had thought, have thought about it vaguely. Otherwise, I've got my second channel just called Brinsley McNamara, and I might just do videos outside of Ireland there. But there's still enough to be done in Ireland for the minute.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (21:44)
I have so many questions right now with everything that you're saying.

Okay, so I want to slide

back into names of like, I'm trying to remember all these questions right now. So Brinsley McNamara is your pen name. It's not your real name, correct? Yeah. So you chose that why and how, and for people who aren't familiar with the author that it's tied to, can you speak to all of that?

Brinsley McNamara (22:04)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's right.

Mm hmm.

Yeah, absolutely. Um, funnily enough, I was actually so yeah, um, the author of Brinsley McNamara, M-A-C, he also not his real name, his real name was John Weldon. He was an author from Westmeath where I'm from. He died in 1963, I think so he's dead a long time. And his most famous book is called Valley of the Squinting Windows. And that came out and I think 1919. It's a really old book.

a weirdly enough, I'm saying there I was at a book fair earlier today in a town called Delvin. Delvin is where Brinsley McNamara was from. ⁓ And it's a very interesting thing that there's a book fair there because the book Valley of the Squinting Windows became really infamous in that town Delvin, because ⁓ the author wrote the book about his town Delvin, although he didn't call it Delvin, he called it Garradrimna. And all the characters in the book are actually people that were in Delvin at the time, although he changed the names.

But he didn't talk about them in a good light. example, I can think of was there was a post office in Garradrimna. If the postmaster or the postmistress, if she came upon a letter that she didn't recognize the handwriting of, she would go to the kitchen, which is just in the next door, boil the kettle, open up the glue on the envelope using the steam, read the letter, put it back in, and send it.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (23:14)
scared.

Brinsley McNamara (23:42)
And he talks about that in the book and probably the case is the post mistress was doing that in real life. So it led to really big controversy. His book was actually burned publicly in a a in a bonfire in the middle of Delvin. And by far, that's the most famous infamous bit of that book. That's the reason it's most well known because it was publicly burned in Delvin back in 1919. And it goes a little bit more than that. There was actually a legal case in the 1920s about it. That gets really complicated, that whole thing. But basically,

Yeah, that's where the name Brinsley McNamara comes from. Although my name and his name is spelled a little bit different. He's MAC, I'm MC. ⁓

Tara (Travel With TMc) (24:21)
Was there any reason

why you chose to do that or just that when people are googling they don't find him instead of you or?

Brinsley McNamara (24:28)
Honestly, no other it's kind of way I kind of got stuck with it because back in 2021 when I was doing Weird Westmeath in Ireland, there's a the National Heritage uh where they call National Heritage Organization basically. They annually they do an event where Heritage Week in August and back then for COVID people could could could do their own heritage project on it, but they could do online projects because of COVID. So

Tara (Travel With TMc) (24:41)
Institute? Yeah.

Brinsley McNamara (24:57)
I wanted to do one for Weird Westmeath where we collect a lot of different folklore from Westmeath. ⁓ And I did. And they were in the application, they wanted the name of the organization. So I said Weird Westmeath. And then they wanted the name of the applicant and I didn't really want to use my name. So I was like, I was honestly reading Valley of the Squinting Windows at the time his book. ⁓ So I just chose his name. ⁓ And I accidentally misspelled his name. And the funny thing is

in every single book you will ever find of that author it's McNamara M-A-C However online and everywhere except on his books it's really really common for people to misspell it as MC as I misspelled mine. ⁓ So that's really the only reason he is always always MAC but misspelled MC constantly. ⁓ No other reason than that really so vaguely on Weird Westmeath although I didn't use the name much of his technically still my name on it and then when I started the new channel

Tara (Travel With TMc) (25:36)
and just.

Brinsley McNamara (25:51)
⁓ I want you know, I Really often when I'm looking for an idea for something. I'll just make homage to something. I like ⁓ I've ever seen the TV show Jackass? Probably. Yeah I've a huge huge I don't even like the movies that much like the first one and after that I really liked them but the TV shows I love the most I love the TV show that's really really hard to find these days But Johnny Knoxville opens up every episode with Hi. I'm Johnny Knoxville. Welcome to Jackass ⁓

Tara (Travel With TMc) (26:00)
Yeah.

Yeah, for sure. Yeah. ⁓

Brinsley McNamara (26:21)
And that's the only reason mine opens up. Well, my name is Brinsley McNamara. Welcome to Weird Ireland. ⁓ I was about to make it. Well, I was about to make it. Hi, my name is Brinsley McNamara. And then I thought, no, hang on a second. It should be well, because we're doing it over here in Ireland. So, yeah, if I'm ever stuck for something to say, I'll just I'll just make reference to some something, a movie or TV show or a book or a song that I like. So that's where that intro comes from. Yeah. ⁓

Tara (Travel With TMc) (26:25)
Hey.

I love that you're leaving like a little breadcrumb of trails

connecting different things you're interested in for your audience.

Brinsley McNamara (26:49)
Yeah,

yeah, yeah, for sure. Almost no one of my buddies picked that up and that's about the only person ever copped it. It's a Johnny Knoxville homage. Also, also not his real name. Also not his real name. I think his real name is Philip Clap. ⁓ It's just his middle name is John and he's from Knoxville, Tennessee and that's it.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (26:57)
Yeah, that's Right.

Yeah, no, it's,

⁓ I think it's especially ⁓ fun or interesting for people who are into what you're doing because like our names are so important and so highly signify who we are and connect to like, you know, concepts about us. But for you to give people insights into things that you're interested in with how your intro was written or with the name that you've chosen, even though they don't know your real name, they can still glean parts of who you are and what you're about through these homages that you're using.

Brinsley McNamara (27:20)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, it's fun. It's a lot of fun, I guess. And I think it led, I think it has led to lot of interest because, you know, once you hear the name Brinsley McNamara over and over again, it's, it's, kind of gives interest. you wouldn't believe the amount of people that follow the page for or comment for no other reason than their last name is McNamara. I wouldn't believe that used to happen every couple of days. ⁓ And like I get a message off another McNamara somewhere in the world and, the name Brinsley would bring a lot of intrigue as well. ⁓ It would just cling into people's heads like that.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (28:01)
It's not common, right?

It's not a common name, right?

Brinsley McNamara (28:05)
It's funny, people from outside of Ireland typically are fully under the impression as my name. Because as far as they know, Brinsley could be an Irish name. Anyone from Ireland, almost everyone from Ireland was immediately knows it's not a real name. Because Brinsley, is a plot. It's a guy from Philadelphia asked me, is it a plausible Irish name? That's a good question. Plausible. No, it's not plausible. The Brinsley's do exist. ⁓

but I've never met one, I've never really heard of one. The author who used that as a pen name had an uncle called Brinsley, I think it is an old Victorian Georgian Irish name. Well, it's not even Irish, it's like British or Irish, but it's yeah, it's an Edwardian Victorian type name. So that's kind of, that's where it is. ⁓ So yeah, it's not at all common in Ireland. If any genuine ones exist in Ireland, I think there's, you could count them on your hand probably. Yeah.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (28:45)
Okay. Yeah, that's what I was gonna say. Yeah.

Right, right.

Well, if you ever feel like revealing your real name, Travel with TMc's here for ya. Yeah, sounds good. Okay, well, I'd love to know like a little bit more about growing up for you. Like, because what you do is travel going around Ireland and exploring the different places and you've lived in other countries and you're going to be travelling overseas. Like, do you remember where

Brinsley McNamara (29:07)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. I'll tell you after.

Mm.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (29:26)
this travel bug came from for you or what your first trip was, whether it was like a family road trip or going to visit other family or like how did that all start for you?

Brinsley McNamara (29:35)
I mean, I nearly don't count anything prior to being like 18 or that kind of thing. Cause then you're just kind of on family holiday. And I used to be, I used to be top level zoned out on holidays. ⁓ I'd never been on holiday, but I'd be reading a book. ⁓ and I had to be told not long at like a year ago, ⁓ that a holiday when I was on, when I was about 15, I didn't know if I was in Spain or if I was in Italy, I didn't know what country I was in. I'd be paying so, I would be paying so, so little attention. didn't know what city we were in.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (29:42)
Yes!

Brinsley McNamara (30:05)
I would just read at the time I was reading. No, was 16. ⁓ At the time I was reading 1984 and that's all I cared about. was just read. would just read. ⁓ I loved reading when I was on holiday. I thought was nice in the sun. ⁓ So no, I would be. And even thinking back on memories where like, you know, where I was shopping with my like when I was a child and I was, you know, she brought us off shopping in some other town somewhere. I wouldn't. ⁓

I'd have to ask her where that was. wouldn't be because I would be completely zoned out. I wouldn't know where we were. It wouldn't occur to me whatsoever to even think of where we were. The occasion I'm thinking of it might have been in Newry. It might have been in Cavan. We don't remember. But I was so, so zoned out. I just didn't, didn't, didn't even bat an eyelid. I played a lot of video games. I played a hell of a lot of video games. And that's, that was all I really cared about that and a bit of reading. So it wasn't until really when I was, you know,

Tara (Travel With TMc) (30:37)
Yeah.

That's hilarious.

Brinsley McNamara (30:59)
I remember when I was 18, I went working for a summer with my cousin in Germany ⁓ in Bavaria, actually really close to Austria. When I was leaving there, it was back in 2011, I was determined to go to the Sonisphere Festival in the UK. It's not around anymore, it was a heavy metal festival. Metallica were playing, Megadeth were playing, Anthrax were playing, Slayer were playing, Slipknot was playing.

And I was so determined to go, I was going to go on my own. I didn't bat an eyelid to that. I'd only just gone into music when I was like 18, before that was in the video games. And I was just, you know, I didn't have any, I didn't have any fear whatsoever. I in the end my, my, my sister and my brother-in-law, went to, which was good. I would have gotten my own, problem. It wouldn't, it just, you know, it was a way of being able to go see something like that and have the whole getting there didn't faze me whatsoever. ⁓ And then I moved to the UK when I was 22, ⁓ after college.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (31:46)
Nice.

That was your first

time moving abroad or would you say, yeah.

Brinsley McNamara (32:01)
Yeah,

yeah, I was. What was 22? What my co same cousin I was actually same cousin I was living in what he called Germany with same cousin of dressed up like Freddy Krueger Halloween as well. ⁓ He actually was just my house about half an hour ago. He's gone to town now. But ⁓ but ⁓ we, yeah, we both moved over to Edinburgh in 2015. And yeah, that was just an unbelievably great moving over an adventure when you're in the well, at least when I was in the UK, I was

during the summer I was constantly going around working at music festivals, either volunteering at music festivals or working at music festivals. ⁓ Almost, in fact, I don't think I, no, I did buy tickets for some festivals, but that would have been so, so, so rare. I would have worked at them or volunteered at them just cause, you know, to not spend money. ⁓ So I would have gone all up and down the UK, around Scotland, around England for that. So, and that's when I got into hitchhiking. we lived in Edinburgh,

Tara (Travel With TMc) (32:37)
that's in future.

Brinsley McNamara (32:59)
we started hosting people on couch surfing. ⁓ And I'd never heard of it. And couch surfing is a very different thing now to what it was back 10 years ago. In fact, I completely stopped using it because it's, you know, you know yourself. Yeah. Back then, I just picture it. We had this huge flat. Three of the 4 guys living in the flat went to school together. So we all just don't care who we bring around and stuff like that. And it's in Edinburgh. ⁓ So as you can imagine, we got at least 10, 20 messages a day because it's Edinburgh. It's such a popular place. People want to stay. ⁓

Tara (Travel With TMc) (33:05)
It is. Yeah.

It's different. It's yeah.

Brinsley McNamara (33:29)
We met other Canadians actually. Yeah, Dana. She's from Vancouver or I don't know if she's from Vancouver if she spent a lot of time in Vancouver. I can't remember but she was Oh, she listens to all these. She listens to all these. Hi Dana. I'll see you in Bristol this summer. Sometimes she lives there now. But I remember her describing to me about hitchhiking and that's where I got the idea to do it myself. And the first hitch I did was Edinburgh to the Isle of Wight to go to Bestival.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (33:38)
Dana, if you're listening, give us a shout.

Brinsley McNamara (33:58)
which is the Isle of Wight's right at very, well, you probably, you know, it's right at the very bottom coast of England. And then, I don't know, I just got very into that kind of thing. I've hitched around, I used to hitch around, I used to hitch around the UK a lot. I used to hitch down to London a lot, just to go to gigs. I've hitched in Europe a lot, I've hitched in Ireland a good bit. But I haven't done it consistently since 2019. I've only done it like once since 2019.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (34:22)
Any tips to somebody who wants to try it?

Brinsley McNamara (34:25)
Um, there's honestly the funny thing is back in back when I started hitchhiking in 2015 all the way till 2019 And in 2017 I did a lot of hitch a huge amount of hitchhiking that year around Europe Back then there was a bunch of websites. I don't know if they still exist Haven't looked at them in a long time. There was you know, like Wikipedia and it's a wiki and users create the content on it back then there was a wiki called Hitchwiki and

Hitchwiki was absolutely the best place to get the advice. If you typed in Kitchener, if you typed in Kitchener, what province is that? If you typed in Kitchener, Ontario, you'd get the location page on it. And now all the information was dependent on people adding stuff to it. So bigger places would have more info. But even smaller places, what I mean, if you're hitchhiking out of Bristol and you're trying to get to London, it'll tell you which way to go, what service station to go to.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (35:01)
Ontario.

Brinsley McNamara (35:21)
where to stand at, all this kind of thing. would give you, if you're trying to go north, trying to go south, trying go east, trying to go west, it would give you all the information. There was another 2, was Nomad Wiki, which was like an overall site for here's free places so you can sleep, here's where can get free food, free wifi. And there was Trash Wiki, which was all just about free food for dumpster diving, table diving, stuff like that. Now, Hitch Wiki included a lot of the info too. Hitch Wiki was by far the best one. A lot of the time, the info on Nomad Wiki or Trash Wiki would on Hitch Wiki.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (35:42)
Yeah.

Brinsley McNamara (35:50)
Check out those places. I will say, ⁓ because I've hitched the channel, the English Channel, I've hitched that twice. I've done it in both directions, both times in the Channel tunnel. And I only knew from reading Hitchwiki that you can hitch the channel. You can do it in both directions and you can use the Channel tunnel or you can use the ferry. Both work. They work because you're not paying per person in vehicle, you're paying per vehicle. So it doesn't matter how many people are in there. So you'll find that info on there. I never, and then,

And then I tried to hitch from Wales to Ireland, but you have to pay on those. And I knew from Hitchwiki, you can't technically hitch those boats. So I knew to pay there. Those are great websites for any other general advice. I never hitchhike when it's dark anymore. I've never had a very bad run in, but I've had a...

I've had like, not ideal run ins kind of thing. Some of my friends have had some pretty bad run ins actually. So yeah, I mean, you know, always be safe. It's not necessarily like safe. But the fact that I didn't give a damn, just, just, really couldn't care. I just didn't, I didn't give a damn. was just, I don't know, very careless. Is that the word? I don't know. I was very adventurous at the time.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (36:52)
Great.

Young and confident that life will just take care of you.

Brinsley McNamara (37:07)
Honestly, yeah, I remember. Yeah, yeah, honestly. I remember I was in Cumbria, I think there was if you're hitching from Edinburgh to London, there's a really, really big service station in Cumbria. And it's not really near anything. The service station is huge. I've been there so many times for that reason. And I hitched a ride all the way down to London or just outside London. And I got in with 2 guys who were driving a truck and I just got behind, you know, in the behind. And I just fell asleep there for the entire journey. Woke up in London, got out and, you know, anything could have happened for that. And they didn't even speak English or anything. Well, that one of did a bit.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (37:32)
Yeah!

Brinsley McNamara (37:37)
⁓ So, but I just didn't really give a damn back then. ⁓

Tara (Travel With TMc) (37:40)
Is there like

hitchhiking like etiquette or like unknown unspoken rules kind of thing or I've only hitchhiked a couple times, but they've been very short. I've like, I can't speak to it much.

Brinsley McNamara (37:48)
and no less.

Yeah.

unwritten rules, it's, it can get it's such a complicated thing. can get like Hitchwiki info, I used to scrub that site, it will get so so detailed some like, for example, some countries in Europe, ⁓ hitchhiking is so common that they expect you to pay it's not really like hitchhiking in the rest of in most countries. ⁓ So that advise you on that kind of thing. So there is unwritten rules like that. ⁓ Well, not unwritten, yeah, unwritten rules like that some countries

It's really common to pay, so expect them to ask you. ⁓ Geez, I don't know. I 2 people is always for me the best number of people to hitchhike with. You're just, I don't know. If you're one person, you'll get more lifts because there's more space. If there's 2, you might feel more secure. You might get less lifts. Any more than 2, I've never done that. It's going to get a lot harder to get lifts after that. ⁓ Unrun rules? Nah, I don't think so. I don't think so. ⁓

Tara (Travel With TMc) (38:47)
Yeah.

Brinsley McNamara (38:52)
But there's some, mean, I used to even read about, they would even have bits saying about how much eye contact you would make with the driver as they're pulling up to you. ⁓ They would even have, there would even be rules and not rules, there would be like advice given on what to put on your board, what to put on your cardboard. some people are of the school of thought, write down where you're going to. If you're in, if you're in, ⁓ I don't know, ⁓ Paris and you're trying to get to Berlin.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (38:58)
⁓

Okay.

Brinsley McNamara (39:21)
write down Berlin on your thing. ⁓ And then other people are of the school of thought, do it. I'm actually more in the school of thought of the second one. Write down stops in between because you're more likely to get lifts. A lot of people see Berlin and they won't be driving there, but they'll actually be driving almost the whole way there and they won't realize that. And then there's a school of thought, it's a minor one where you write something funny. say, you know, let's say, and actually I actually did it once. It didn't work, but I was in Croatia.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (39:40)
Yeah.

Brinsley McNamara (39:49)
and I just wrote Ireland in 5 languages on the sign. And people did laugh, but didn't really get a lift from that one in particular. Or if you're Paris and you're trying to get to Normandy right to the beach or something like that. Yeah, I've known a guy to do that, yeah. Honestly, there isn't really hard and fast rules, I don't think, but there is so much tips, so much advice that you could go on about all day, honestly, yeah.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (40:04)
Jokes.

So cool,

amazing. Another thing I was wondering about was do you have any travel traditions? But it sounds like hitching and for music seem to be part of your travel traditions. Are you used to if they're not still?

Brinsley McNamara (40:27)
Yeah.

Used to is definitely the right way to put it. never used to, I never used to, I still don't just go on a holiday somewhere. I never, I never do that. I mean, when I lived in the UK, I never did that. I would only ever, ever go on a holiday if like, I would only ever go somewhere if I was going either for a music festival or a gig, which I used to do a lot, or, or if I knew people there and I could crash with them, I would do, I would do that a lot as well.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (40:48)
Yeah.

Brinsley McNamara (40:55)
Or if I was going for, it would always be a specific reason. I would never ever, I still don't ever go somewhere just to look around and hang out. I never would do that. When I went to the USA, I specifically went to Blacksburg, Virginia and stayed there for a week for no other reason than I knew somebody who was in college there. So I stayed with her for a week. But like we went, her and her flatmates, we went to demolition Derby, went pumpkin patch picking, we went to Cracker Barrel, you we did all sorts. I know it was great, yeah.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (41:21)
Nice.

Brinsley McNamara (41:23)
And I

got a great experience doing that, you know, I mean, I've never been to New York or Chicago or Los Angeles or that, but you know, I got to do that. So yeah, that's honestly a really good way of putting it. I would never ever go on. And now with Weird Ireland, whenever I'm travelling around Ireland, there's a really specific, there's content to be gotten everywhere. ⁓ Absolutely everywhere. And, ⁓ you know, especially I was actually in Wexford just a few days ago because I was staying there a few days just to go around and get content in County Wexford and County Waterford.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (41:30)
Yeah.

Brinsley McNamara (41:54)
And it's a it's a part of the country I know the least. So I just don't I barely even know the names of the town towns down there had engaged myself off where I am. But I've gotten a better idea since being there now got a lot of videos down there. Where else am I going? I'm going to Donegal in June. June. Oh, good. I'm going to Donegal Rally. Do know that? The Donegal Rally is Ireland's it's like it's like the Super Bowl of rallies in Ireland. Rally is like on road car racing.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (42:10)
or it'll be in September.

No, I don't. What's that?

Brinsley McNamara (42:22)
And the Donegal Rally is the big one. It begins in Letterkenny. So me and a few of the guys are going to that. What else? I think we're going to the Ballyhaunis Festival. And festival, it's not a music festival. It's like Ballyhaunis is just a town. Well, not just a town, it's a town in Mayo. And it's like their summer festival or whatever. Yeah, so I'm going, probably I'm going there at the end of this month. So anytime I'm going somewhere, it's for a specific event going on or a specific video to make or...

Tara (Travel With TMc) (42:41)
video.

Brinsley McNamara (42:49)
That kind of thing. So it's still very much the case now. I wouldn't go somewhere just to hang out, really. Yeah.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (42:53)
Yeah, it sounds like you're a very intentional traveller. Like you have a goal in mind or you have a person in mind or something like that that rides here.

Brinsley McNamara (42:59)
Yeah, I guess so. Yeah, yeah,

yeah. Even or a job like, like when I was going to Spain those times, I'd find different internships or different jobs in different places. And I go there for that reason. I worked in Nicaragua in 2023 for 3 months, but that was only really specific because I had a job there for 3 months. ⁓ So otherwise, I probably would never have gone kind of thing. ⁓ Which maybe isn't ideal. It's good to go to these places too. But I like going with a purpose. Yeah, very much so. That's very much the case.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (43:20)
Yeah!

Yeah,

definitely. And for Weird Ireland, Weird Ireland, I can't speak right now. Do you have like, you sound like an organized person as well. Do you have like a spreadsheet or a list of like the places that you want to check out, what you're doing there? Like how do you function given the quantity of content and the consistency with which you put things out? How does that work for you? What's your process like?

Brinsley McNamara (43:28)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah,

there's spreadsheets. is a giant spreadsheet that isn't that well, it wasn't that well set up. And any things that are already in my head, I'll put in there, but I get a lot of advice and I'll take those down as notes and then often I'll actually hold on those notes for months until I figure, until I realize to them into the spreadsheet. And then other spreadsheets, the spreadsheets of, there's lists of content that's already recorded and not put out yet. So I can know what's there. There's a list of potential.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (44:02)
Yeah.

Brinsley McNamara (44:15)
guess for podcasts that have written down kind of thing. ⁓ Yeah, there is there is very much sheets like that. I've got a very good memory as well. ⁓ And a lot of it will be just I mean, there's a lot of kind of slightly flights of fancy as well. Like I did a New Year's Eve video in Portmagee in Kerry and and that was it was because they have a New Year's Eve celebration down there, which is not real- a traditional one, which is not a common thing in Ireland at all. It's the only one I'm aware of.

And I literally, I think it was in December or maybe November, I just got the idea into my head, I wanna go do something for New Year's Eve, may as well go make a video while I'm doing it, is there anything in the country that's worth doing it? And I found out about this Portmagee festival. So I asked some of the guys if they were keen, we've got an Airbnb, but that was all planned out pretty quickly sort of thing, yeah. Oh, I've got also lists of events coming up this summer and which ones I'm able to go to around the country. So yeah, there's a lot of organizing behind it.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (45:01)
Last minute.

Brinsley McNamara (45:11)
And then there's a lot I want to get down to a place is going around Google Maps and seeing what interesting things are around, you know? Yeah, I even feel like in Wexford, I wasn't that well organized. There was a few things I wanted to see there and then I was just kind of, but it's just hard when I don't know the area that well, you know? Yeah.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (45:15)
Yeah

Yeah, yeah, definitely.

Oh my goodness, yeah, still so many questions. Okay, do you have any like super memorable moments, whether they've been from your times living abroad or a Weird Ireland location or person that you've met that's really stood out for you?

Brinsley McNamara (45:42)
there be a few I guess I mean, one that comes to mind is back in January, I recorded a podcast. And for the Weird Ireland podcast every every like it's a mix of either talking to like with my pals, which are the co host. Or I'll go interview somebody somewhere around the country or wherever. And I've always always done this like with them sitting across from me. So I have to go to wherever they are. And I've got the portable podcasting kit. And there was a guy a guy commented on one of the videos.

And I went into his profile, I always do. And it looked like he was a guy who owned traditional stonemason business. And I actually really, really wanted to interview traditional stonemason for years. It was someone I was very interested in. And so I messaged him. And I was like, would you have any interest in talking on a podcast? His name is Dom, Dominic Keogh. And he was like, Yeah, definitely. And he lives in Manorhamilton in Leitrim. So the far side of Leitrim near Sligo. So we drove up there one day in January, we came up to the Leitrim

What's it called the Leitrim Stone Work? So they're in Manorhamilton There's like this stone masonry centre basically that he worked out of a lot of other people worked out of so we met him there made a video there, went across the pub got pints set of the equipment recorded We were there all night like we were there all evening with the guy and that was brilliant was a great podcast great video there was an entire podcast he had so much knowledge on what he was talking about and such an ability to speak that even like

It was about an hour and half from when we met him to when we started recording, but in that hour and a half, there would have been a whole podcast worth the material that was never recorded because we hadn't even set up yet. And almost none of it came up in the podcast. Very, very little of it. He just had so much he could say. It was a great, great, great fun interaction. And he wasn't, he's not like a content creator. He owns a stone, he's a traditional stone mason. owns a business. Oh, and a conservation worker too, actually. But he's not a content creator, so.

It was great that, know, normally content creators put themselves out there more and it wasn't necessarily the case, but he had absolutely no problem in talking about more than just, mean, he could talk about Stone all day, but he was well able to talk about music, was big into playing music. He was big into local stories from, he was from Mayo originally, from Mayo. He's been, he could talk about anything. It's uploaded now. It's, what's it called again? Stone Talk with Traditional Stonemason Dom Keogh. I think that's what it's called. Yeah. It came out in January, I think. So that was a great experience going to Manorhamilton. It's always a hell of a lot of fun.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (48:05)
Check it out.

Brinsley McNamara (48:08)
and very nice to meet him and it was a very very fun evening you know yeah

Tara (Travel With TMc) (48:13)
Cool. Awesome.

Have you had any scary experiences in your travels or in your exploration?

Brinsley McNamara (48:21)
hitchhiking I've had 2. They weren't really, they weren't scary, but they weren't ideal. I didn't get robbed or anything like that. No, I didn't get robbed or anything like that, but they weren't really ideal. One was in England, one was in Bosnia. And they only about a month apart from each no, they're about 6 weeks or 2 months apart from each other. ⁓ I won't go into those exactly, but yeah, I didn't get robbed and I didn't get hurt and I didn't get like.

brought somewhere random or something like that. they weren't ideal. But I have had buddies that much were negative situations with hitchhiking. But outside of that, scary experiences. People have asked me, have I ever seen a ghost? I haven't. seen, I have had, no, I've never seen those either. Never seen Bigfoot, never seen any cryptid. ⁓ Geez, mean, like I said, I used to live in Nicaragua for 3 months and you'd see alligators there every day, it was, well, crocodiles there every day, like it was nothing. ⁓

Tara (Travel With TMc) (49:03)
Fairies.

you

Brinsley McNamara (49:21)
never scared of anything. No, no, no, wouldn't be... No, no, no, no, I'm never really a scary one or anything like that. ⁓

Tara (Travel With TMc) (49:29)
That's good. ⁓

You were talking earlier about ⁓ growing up travelling and how you couldn't be arsed about what was going on around you and you're just right into the books there. And I can so relate to this. Like travelling with my family when I was a kid, my dad would literally tell me to close the book and look out the window because I also could not care what was going on in the world. ⁓ But with that link, that love of reading and your love of history and knowing that you guys learn Irish growing up and that you've lived in other countries,

Brinsley McNamara (49:46)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (50:00)
Do you still use Irish? Do you speak other languages? What's your story that way?

Brinsley McNamara (50:05)
I went to a Gaelscoil, know those? Yeah, Irish language school, for primary school, for primary school. The secondary school one, isn't any, I don't think there's any secondary school one near where I am, but I went to a primary school one. So up till the age of 12, from 4 till 12, I would have had to do school and, well, you wouldn't have done every subject in Irish. Like you don't do geography, it's Tíreolaíocht and you don't do history, it's Staire You do English in English. When you're learning English, you talk English. But even the playground, I mean.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (50:08)
did, no way! Come on. Yeah.

Brinsley McNamara (50:34)
meant to be Irish. You did, we didn't. We just got nobody did we just got very good at looking around for teachers and then walking away if they're getting too close. But but my level of Irish is not really up to a lot of my friends like that my co host the podcast Jamie and actually with him in Edinburgh for 3 and a half years when I was going school with him. His Irish is still really really good. He and he went to the Gaelscoil as well. He kept it up very well. Mine's nowhere near as good as his anymore.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (50:36)
Yeah.

Okay.

For sure.

Brinsley McNamara (51:03)
I went to a Gaeltacht as well last summer for a bit, but I didn't pick up that much. I speak Spanish now very, well. I mean, I have...

Tara (Travel With TMc) (51:09)
¿Entonces podemos

hablar en español ahora?

Brinsley McNamara (51:12)
Podemos, sí. but I guess you Mexican You say here or you say... I don't know, the other words? Well...

Tara (Travel With TMc) (51:14)
you

Acá, aquí, los dos. Sí. ⁓ We'll

switch back for the listeners. They'll be like, what's going on? Yeah.

Brinsley McNamara (51:31)
I speak that pretty well. Yeah. I haven't

had that much time to practice it. I've been away for nearly 2 years in Spain. ⁓ But that's my next best language after English and nothing else would be any other level like that. ⁓ I've never had my ability now in Spanish is far better than my ability in Irish ever would have been. ⁓ I wouldn't have I had no I had no interest in learning. I absolutely love, love, love, love languages now. I'm trying to learn Italian a bit now because I want to go there later this year. ⁓

Tara (Travel With TMc) (51:50)
Where-

Yeah.

Brinsley McNamara (52:00)
but I would have had absolutely no interest in languages in school. wouldn't really, it just wouldn't, I don't know, it's just kind of zoned out again in a way. I did German in school and I did it in the leaving cert like at the end of school but it would have been one of my worst subjects. Now I love languages, now I think they're really, really interesting but I just wasn't, I just wasn't tuned in. wasn't that arse with it at all like, yeah.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (52:23)
Yeah,

what switch do you think for you?

Brinsley McNamara (52:27)
don't really know to be honest. really, really don't know. I honestly don't know. just think they're, don't know. Cause I mean, I like, I like history and like other places and like to learn about other cultures. And I remember being like a teenager. I just read the, I just thought when I first discovered Wikipedia, you could type Brazil and just read all about the languages and the history and the places in Brazil. I thought that was brilliant. It's like, it's it's literally just like when a child who likes that kind of thing finds an encyclopedia and read encyclopedias, you know, I mean, it's literally that cause it is an encyclopedia.

So I think that aspect of it really interested me, but I didn't start properly trying to learn Spanish until I was, oh, 26 or 27 maybe? I'm 32 now. And I didn't move to Spain until I was 27, 27 I think, yeah. Yeah.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (53:03)
Yeah.

Yeah. Did you take

lessons or did you just pick it up while living in the country? How did you go about it?

Brinsley McNamara (53:16)
Oh,

like before I moved there, started doing online lessons, proper online lessons in the Duolingo as well, which isn't, people say it's not that useful. It isn't, but not necessarily, but it's not bad either. There's no problem using it every day and reminds you of vocabulary. And honestly, if you actually go really, really far in the language in Duolingo, like I am, I haven't used it in Spanish in a long time, but I am really, really far into it. It actually does start doing grammar stuff in it. That's really useful to know. It is really good practice with that. But when it says repeating vocabulary, it's not really

Tara (Travel With TMc) (53:26)
Yeah. Yeah.

Brinsley McNamara (53:46)
know, you can get too repetitive, but is a good tool. Then when I was in Spain, did I would have done lessons there at the beginning and done a lot of self learning. Then I lived on an eco village in Spain in 2021 for 8 months. And there, I had only just started learning how to say the most immediate past tenses.

in Spanish so that's the level I was at but I would wreck people I would absolutely wreck people's heads I would ask questions and questions and questions if they said something I was like what was that what did you say what did that mean or how do you say this and I'd be and for 8 months they got that ⁓ and the questions would have gotten harder as it went on because it would have gotten more yeah just more just harder ⁓ so yeah I really that was actually where it improved the most I just pestered them so much and asked them how do I say things but worked out great ⁓ good on lessons there too

I lived in Seville for 6 months, I did lessons the whole time there. And I would have just been out in the town a lot, a lot when I was in Seville. Did language exchanges there too, just the whole podcast. When I was learning, I spent the first hour of the day before work listening to Spanish language podcasts, ⁓ once for learning English, but all in Spanish. ⁓ I was really, really hell bent on it. So it was a mix of things. Yeah, it was a big mix of things. ⁓

but it really helped being there and having native speakers around you and ones that could, it's not always good if all of them could all speak English, but if some of them can, then you're in a really good position, you know? Yeah. Oh cool yeah.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (55:16)
Yeah, I totally relate with you on this again. I was just in Guatemala for a month and

yeah, and for one of the weeks I chose to do a language school. in the morning I had classes, but I stayed with a host family there that week as well. And my biggest goal for Guatemala was immersing myself in Spanish. I studied it in high school and university, but I don't use it a ton day to day. And it's so true. You, you know, you either live in the place or you date someone in the language or you just go full out nerd and you get into the lessons and do that kind of self.

Brinsley McNamara (55:27)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (55:46)
self-taught.

Brinsley McNamara (55:46)
Yeah,

I never did the movies and music thing. That's a really, really big tip that people have. And honestly, it works brilliantly. Where you watch Spanish language TV shows in Spanish with subtitles if you need. ⁓ Doesn't hurt. And listen to the Spanish language music. I've never did that. I just never did. I just couldn't. If I wasn't interested in the TV show, I just wouldn't keep watching it just for that reason. But that's a really good one. Up there with the best methods.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (55:50)
You got to say it.

Yes.

Yes.

Brinsley McNamara (56:15)
Honestly. Yeah.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (56:16)
Yeah, do you have

any favourite language, not languages, do have any favourite ⁓ phrases or words in any of the languages that you know?

Brinsley McNamara (56:23)
Um, I like a few. uh, no tiene Is it no hace calor or no tiene calor? No, no colour. It's like if you want to say, oh, there's no comparison. You're like, oh, you know, Guinness. Be I don't know. Murphy's is better than Beamish. So there's no comparison. It's you know, the Murphy's es mejor que Beamish no hay color. That's it. No hay color. There's no colour. Yeah, that's um, do know that one? Yeah, I don't have to use that Latin America. No colour means there's no comparison. There's no different, you know, not like that.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (56:46)
I don't know that one, no.

Brinsley McNamara (56:52)
There's one my favourite one is a no moco de pa... No es moco de pavo? Yeah, that's it: no es moco de pavo. ⁓ moco, snot, you know, and pavo, ⁓ turkey. No, it's not turkey snot. That means it's no joke, like it's a serious matter. That's what that means. I really, really doubt they use that Latin America. That's one in Spain. ⁓ Also, I don't know how it ties into it, but you know, like a pocket watch.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (57:05)
Okay.

Okay.

Yeah.

Brinsley McNamara (57:22)
I think I was told once in Spain that they call a pocket watch a turkeysnot. It's just an expression they use for it or something like that. So I don't know what that expression, do they literally mean turkeysnot or do they mean a pocket watch? Either way, that is a big expression. That's no joke. I don't know. I'm trying to think of something that's no joke. Or like learning Spanish is no joke. ⁓

It's like it's a serious matter. think that's more so what it means. Yeah. That's another one I like a lot. I like a lot. I would just be, like I did do lessons, but I spent a lot of the time ⁓ just kind of talking to people in Spain on the street and that, or even in Nicaragua. spent, I think I've been told I kind of talk like in the guys in Nicaragua now, because I was there for 3 months at 2 guys I hang out with, both from Nicaragua, both hadn't a word of English. ⁓ geez, you know, like, stuff did they say? ⁓

Tara (Travel With TMc) (57:53)
Yeah. Cool.

Brinsley McNamara (58:19)
I'm not those kind of sweary ones. I'm not gonna use but they're Nicaraguan sweary ones What I love is they don't like in Spain or is you talking to a guy? He's a cheval, know chevales all the chevales in a lot and then in around Latin America muchachos You know, you'd know that one. Yeah in Nicaragua. They call each other barón. Barones is I don't know like barons dudes. That's how they say it I don't know if they say that another part of Latin America, but they say at least the 2 guys I was working with said a lot

Tara (Travel With TMc) (58:38)
Okay.

Peace.

Brinsley McNamara (58:48)
I know. I love little intricate bits like that, and language like phrases and that. I use them a lot. Yeah.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (58:51)
Yeah, super neat.

With regards to tech and travel or tech and adventuring, you talked about Wiki a little bit and some websites they use for hitchhiking. Did you do much travel on your own without using tech or have you always kind of been in that vein? What's tech's influence been in your travels?

Brinsley McNamara (59:14)
Yeah, I would always, I think I've always used it. I mean, I would never, to be honest, I think when I first started hitchhiking for the hell of it, I did buy ⁓ UK roadmaps, but they weren't like, never, I bought them and then never used them. I just use Google maps. ⁓ I even bought in service stations, I'd buy like, ⁓ like I'd have a backup, what I even have a backup charger. I carry one around all the time now. I'm not even 100 % sure if I use the backup charger a lot, but I would use. ⁓

Tara (Travel With TMc) (59:25)
Okay.

Brinsley McNamara (59:43)
I would buy like a phone charger, but it's the kind of one that would plug into a firelighter in a car. I had one of those on me. So if I was ever hitchhiking, could just plug into their into their firelighter. I bring one of those around with me. No, there'd be I mean, won't be very heavy tech. There'd be at most that kind of charger phone and and that kind of thing. I remember I was in Bosnia. I was actually working there in a hostel one summer and

And a guy I kind of knew, I met him at a festival once, was in Croatia. So I to go, I got a BlaBlaCar which is way, it's like, you know, the lift sharing website, ⁓ really, really common in mainland Europe. ⁓ Not even that common in the UK or Ireland, to my knowledge, but mainland Europe is really, really common. ⁓ I got to the city in Croatia and I was staying there that night and the guy asked me if I had a bag, he's picking up 2 other people and I just pulled my phone charger out of my pocket, that's all I had on my wallet, my phone and my phone charger and that was it. I didn't even have a jacket because it was hot.

⁓ yeah.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:00:44)
Amazing. And

when you're prepping for like your Weird Ireland content or weekends with the lads or whatever else, what do you use to prep? Are you talking to people? Are you using blogs? Are you reading? What's the research like?

Brinsley McNamara (1:00:58)
It varies. I like, for example, like I said, we're going to the Donegal Rally. I only heard about the Donegal Rally. Actually, it could be exactly this day last year. Come to think of it, I was in Dublin and I met some people and ended up staying at their place. And they told me about the Donegal Rally. Well yer man was from there and I never heard of it. I don't drive and I wouldn't really know anything about rally car driving, although it is a really big scene in Ireland. Donegal Rally is far from the only rally in Ireland. There's a lot of them.

So that kind of got my interest in checking that out some year and for the book I wrote a bit about rally car driving in Ireland And then when I asked some of my friends, some of my friends actually did know about the Donegal Rally so that was all just based off of hearing about that, reading about it online, finding the place to camp for it You know, you can book camping for the... What's that thing called? For the New Year's Eve celebration in Portmagee I found that on Reddit. I don't often use Reddit. I really don't but I looked up

New Year's Eve celebrations in Ireland, see if I can find anything and people, some were talking about on Reddit. So that's where I found out about that looked up YouTube. YouTube is a great tool for that because then you can search that celebration. So you can see, does it look interesting for footage? Because it almost certainly there'll be footage up there of it. So I found footage. It looked great for the I went to Dingle for St. Patrick's Day because they have a they have the earliest St. Patrick's Day parade in Ireland. It's at 6 in the morning. Now.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:02:25)
Why?

Brinsley McNamara (1:02:25)
There's an interesting story behind that now I'll tell you they have 2 st. Patrick's Day parades in Dingle one at like one o'clock in the afternoon the big one and then one at 6 in the morning which is actually like it's a drum and 5 band and they go up and down the town drumming and playing pipes but honestly you could maybe a thousand people could shop for it if it's not raining ⁓ and and I did ask a bunch of people what's the story with that and some it's it's

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:02:38)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Brinsley McNamara (1:02:52)
they weren't I think it was it was the land war in the 1880s I think and there wasn't allowed to be big congregations of people or something like that not even for Paddy's Day so they did it in the morning before anyone like officials were up to see them doing it ⁓ and that's a very old tradition there in Dingle and I honestly heard about that from earlier on this year before Patrick's Day somebody commented on one of my videos I don't remember which one are you going to the St. Patrick's Day parade in Dingle the earliest one in Ireland

Ask them more about it, you explain more, and you know, so, here plays to somewhere or on, you know, that one occasion found that thing on Reddit. I don't know, I keep my ears open for all this kind of thing, you know? ⁓

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:03:29)
Yeah, definitely. And

I feel like probably at this point, people know what you're doing. They'll send you lots too and give you heads up. Yeah.

Brinsley McNamara (1:03:35)
Absolutely. mean,

I'm trying to think what else I have for the summer. ⁓ There's the somebody else commented, either they commented or they DMed me ⁓ that there's a festival in County Down in Warrenpoint where in during the summer, it's called Wake the Giant Festival and it's where there's like, ⁓ they make a giant effigy of Fionn MacCool I think. Yeah, I need to look into that more. I might go to that one. ⁓

God, the May Bank Holiday Weekend coming like the one at the end of May, there is so much stuff going on that that's like the bank holiday weekend of the year. There's so much going on that weekend. And it's a mix of hearing it off some

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:04:07)
Yeah. It'll be hard to choose.

It'll be hard to choose. How do you decide what makes the cut?

Brinsley McNamara (1:04:14)
I don't know. don't know money. at me. Like for example, the Rory Gallagher festival's on that weekend in a Ballyshannon Donegal. I've heard about that first in 2010, maybe 2009 because I've some friends that went there all that every single year. ⁓ so I've known about that years, but I've never been to it. It's a, it's like a blues, ⁓ music festival in, in Ballyshannon. It's in all the pubs instead of a big venue. and it's free to go to, but you pay for the camping. So it's really cheap. ⁓

And God, there's the Cats Laugh Comedy Festival that's on in Kilkenny. Have you been? ⁓ I've never been to it. It's good, is it?

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:04:47)
Oh, I saw Tommy Tiernan there, yeah.

Yeah, it was class, I loved it. We saw 3 different acts, I think there, and then yeah, I just enjoyed the town as well. Yeah, that was a couple of years back.

Brinsley McNamara (1:04:57)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah,

I've never been to Killkennytown, safety, never been. I know, I need to go, yeah.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:05:04)
really?

it's stunning and I feel like with the history there, you just love it. I was there for Christmas markets the last year or 2 as well. Yeah, no, that's too neat. What are you travelling with for gear these days? Because like you sound pretty minimal, but now you've got the podcast and your content creation. So are you using your phone? Are you using like DSLR or whatever or mirrorless cameras?

Brinsley McNamara (1:05:14)
So yeah.

No, every video is

filmed on my phone, that one. Every, it's an iPhone 13 Pro. Every video is edited on there, every video is posted on there, every video, every clip is either saved in there or on the cloud or both.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:05:42)
They need to sponsor you.

Brinsley McNamara (1:05:44)
⁓

iCloud maybe. Well, yeah, so that's very minimal. That's extremely minimalistic. It's just that bring a backup charger, bring the cables. There's no microphone. No, and it's just I just I just speak into the microphone. That's it, you know, to make the videos. There's no need to I couldn't picture recording something on a camera, then putting it onto your laptop and editing it there. I just couldn't picture and doesn't really work with the style of what I'm doing either. Regarding the podcast is literally just 2 mics, 2 mic stands, the laptop using right now. It's a MacBook. ⁓

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:05:46)
you

Yes.

Brinsley McNamara (1:06:12)
I've got an interface is on my knee right here. And honestly, I've gone around with those just in a plastic bag. ⁓ In my backpack. I've done like I went to interview ⁓ God it was in ⁓ Killorglin, Killorglin in Kerry there was a St. Brigid's Day or Biddy's Day there was a Biddy's Day Festival on I made a video there and a recorded guy podcast there but that was all just it was just in a plastic bag in my backpack on my back all the equipment and the laptop and everything like that. ⁓

So no, it's very easy to travel around light like that. And I just got buses around, just got buses through there and buses back from there. ⁓ No, I can travel very, very light, absolutely,

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:06:46)
Nice.

Transport for Ireland Dublin Bus that they should be sponsoring you as well. You're like

Brinsley McNamara (1:06:53)
I wouldn't mind, I

wouldn't mind. mean, local links I'll use. Yeah, that's all TFI, you're right, actually. Yeah, yeah, you're right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, I use those, absolutely. mean, God, what was it? was Killorglin to Tralee, Tralee to Dublin Airport, Dublin Airport to Navan and Navan to Mullingar. That was a trip. ⁓ I left like 10 o'clock at night, Killorglin got back to Mullingar like 9 in the morning or 8 in the morning. Eight in the morning, I think. ⁓ Yeah.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:06:58)
Yeah.

Really?

Yeah.

And is

this, I forgot to ask earlier, is Weird Ireland like your full-time job now or are you...

Brinsley McNamara (1:07:20)
pretty much I'm

not making a huge amount of money off it or anything like that. ⁓ I mean, naturally you get money from a book. ⁓ The podcast doesn't make any money. There was no ads on it. There was no sponsorship on it. ⁓ So that doesn't make any money. The videos do not make any money. Not like with a creator fund like you have in the USA and UK and probably Canada. I'm not sure Ireland doesn't have that for TikTok. ⁓ I don't have enough videos.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:07:30)
Yep. Yep.

Brinsley McNamara (1:07:47)
Or even I don't have any long-term videos on YouTube and that's the easier way to make ad revenue there So nothing there. So it's a mix of book stuff, donation type stuff off of Patreon which I need to bulk and put more stuff on there I was using Buy Me a Coffee and that one actually when I put out the tip jar would actually get a few tips. It's great I might start using both that one again with the Patreon in case anyone just just wants to tip a fiver or something like that the one time totally fine And then different kind of deals. I mean you can make content for other people

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:08:04)
Yeah

Brinsley McNamara (1:08:17)
like I've made a bunch of videos for Ladbible. One of them was an advertisement for a TV show, House of Dragon, the HBO thing. Yeah, I've done an ad for that, also then, but in Weird Island style, I went to places and tried to tie it in with Irish history and mythology. And then otherwise, we just original content you make for them. And then there's other deals like that come in basically too.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:08:26)
Heard of it, haven't seen it, but I've heard of it.

Yeah, yeah.

Brinsley McNamara (1:08:42)
So

I've got a couple of deals going at the minute. So we'll see where they go. And maybe even a podcast sponsorship a little bit further down the line. Maybe this year though, I might come into it. I'll see. There is stuff going on in the background. Yeah, it's not a huge amount of money. But yeah, it's what I fully do. Yeah. Thank you.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:08:48)
Garonia, that's a hustle.

I love it. I love it. Good for you. Honestly,

like I don't think people who aren't doing stuff similar to us don't understand all the time and effort and obviously passion and energy that goes into it. And I have a lot of respect for people like yourselves who, yeah, who dedicate so much time and energy to that. And I hope that it pays off in the ways that you need and want it to as well. ⁓ Yeah, that's neat. Yeah, you're welcome. ⁓

Brinsley McNamara (1:09:11)
Mm-hmm.

Hmm.

Thank you.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:09:28)
Do you prefer living abroad versus travelling to places? Because you've talked about living abroad several times.

Brinsley McNamara (1:09:34)
Mm hmm. Yeah, I guess I do. I yeah, I guess I do. mean, I don't know. just have to feel like, I don't know when you're just travelling to places. I mean, I always, if I'm staying somewhere, it's always a hostel or somebody's place. And most of time, I just can't really, you know, I'll walk around. If I have my laptop on me, it's on my back constantly, you know, you're just constantly keeping an eye out for your stuff and all this kind of thing. Or if you have your own flat, say in a place, it's just, it's nice. I mean, all the time I lived in Spain was really, really terrific. And

Yeah, I really like living there. yeah, I don't know. I guess so. mean, there's different things. There's different things.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:10:09)
Yeah, where's the weirdest place you've slept?

Brinsley McNamara (1:10:12)
I used to sleep outside all the time. used to sleep outside absolutely all the time. When I was hitchhiking, I'd sleep outside constantly. I did the longest hitching trip I did was it was from Dubrovnik Airport, South Croatia. I got as far as Wales and that was all for free. was completely hitching the whole way to Wales. The only reason the hitch stopped is because I couldn't hitch the ferry to Ireland - you had to pay for that.

So I got to pay to go Ross from Fishgare to Rosslare But that was 9 days. And I slept outside every time. And every time I do that, I always, always sleep next to a service station. ⁓ Because I never use a tent. I never had a tent. It was just in a sleeping bag. And yeah, never, never use a tent. Absolutely not. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it wasn't it wasn't cold. was in the summer and it was down in southern Europe. ⁓ But no, I remember ⁓

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:10:59)
Really? You're hardcore!

Yeah!

Brinsley McNamara (1:11:09)
I remember I was at one service station. was in, was, ⁓ where was I? I was outside Zagreb. was north of Zagreb, just north of it. I was at a service station there. And the reason I do it there is, you number one, nobody bothers travelling into the trees next to service stations. They don't, most of the time. Some of them you'll get there and you'll see rubbish or some of them, they close the bathrooms early and truckers use it a lot, they'll actually, you know, use those outdoor toilets. I've actually have seen places like that in Germany. ⁓

but I would just go to the trees like behind a service station, just sleep there for the night. All you do is find somewhere that nobody's gonna walk into for 6 hours and you're good. And you're not using the tents or you're not conspicuous, nobody can see you. And you're safe because you're next to a service station, which is almost always 24 hours. So there's always people in there, you're always safe as it is. But I remember I got to one outside Zagreb and just all surrounding, was dark at the stage when I got there.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:11:43)
Right.

Great.

Brinsley McNamara (1:12:01)
It was, there was a low lying mist all around everywhere and you couldn't sleep in there. just, you just couldn't. ⁓  I wouldn't even have slept in low lying mist cause it just, it's wet, it's damp. ⁓ but I found that there was, ⁓ there was like a ditch next to the road and it was like some kind of a drainage gripe. And if I lay flat and there was no shrubs around or anything like that, I found if I lay flat in that, ⁓ even truck drivers passing by wouldn't see you until it was too late for them to stop or something like that. Cause I just didn't want it to look like I was, see someone distressed and like go in there.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:12:31)
Right.

Brinsley McNamara (1:12:31)
So I slept

there just for the night, just in a ditch next to the road. slept, I remember I hitched to Guildford once on the same trip, hitched to Guildford, and I just walked to a housing estate just in the outskirts of Guildford. And there was, you know, like electrical box, like, I don't know if you have them in, you know, the ones in Ireland and the UK, like, was just, there was just an electrical box and next it was just trees at the corner of an estate. I just got behind the electrical box and.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:12:34)
Yeah.

Brinsley McNamara (1:12:54)
you know, as long as nobody sees you for like 6 or 8 hours or however so long it is. Normally it's only 6 because you're not, you know, you're not going to sleep that much. ⁓ so I remember, I remember one time on the same trip, I was in, ⁓ I was near Salisbury and, ⁓ and I, and there was, was next to a motorway, you know, like there's a motorway bridge. ⁓ so right next to the motorway, you've got the metal, ⁓ like protectors away from the road. just slept right next to that on the inside, away from the road. Cause nobody could barely even walk to that thing. So nobody's going to see you.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:12:57)
Yes.

Brinsley McNamara (1:13:24)
a car is not going to crash through the big metal thing. So I just slept there and I woke up soaking wet and I wasn't thinking at all because I'd just been in Southern Europe for like 2 months and it barely rained when I was there at all. And now I was in England and I just wasn't and it was a lovely evening. I just wasn't thinking at all and I was soaking wet when I woke up at like maybe 4 in the morning or something. But the railway bridge is right next to the railway bridge, the motorway bridge.

So I just climbed underneath that and there is part of even with the slant, there's a part that's not slanted in the back. I didn't sleep but I got in there and it's amusing until the sun came up and then I was walking and then the clothes just dried on me. So I slept outside loads and loads of times and they're normally just in, never would attend to Norwegian place and nobody's gonna see you for a while. Yeah. Yeah.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:14:00)
Yeah.

Yeah. Sign me up for your memoir. When's that coming

out? goodness. Alright. ⁓ So with the help of my guests, I'm putting together a travel playlist. I find, I don't know about you, but on trips that I've been on, there's either been like a theme song that tends to keep on coming up or it's associated with a memory from a trip. And I know I asked you before, but can you share with us what your song is and why you chose it?

Brinsley McNamara (1:14:36)
So the one I chose was Starry-Eyed Surprise by Paul Oakenfold and Shifty Shellshock. Did you know the song before I said it or did you listen?

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:14:44)
Not by name, no. But I'm awful

with names of anything, really.

Brinsley McNamara (1:14:49)
It was a big hit. remember when it was a hit in like 2002 and it was good and all, but it never stuck in my head. then, do you remember that service station I was telling you where I slept in? It was in Croatia, it was outside Zagreb and there was like a ditch and I was in there. I had to think back what tune I was gonna pick when you asked me this. And a few other ones came into my head, but this year I've been listening to that song a lot because I really like it. And I thought, yeah, I'll go for that one because I was in the service station and...

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:15:01)
Yeah.

Brinsley McNamara (1:15:17)
I didn't have a Shazam on my phone, I only started using that few years ago. But that song came on and I didn't have a Shazam and I remembered it from years ago. So I just typed down the lyrics of the chorus into my phone and searched it got that one. And then when I got back to Edinburgh, was just like, even though it was September, it was like the mini summer jam when I got back there. And I don't know, was just on that experience I got that tune. There's definitely other ones, you know, We Can't Go Back by Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds, that would be a big one for me.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:15:44)
Nice.

Brinsley McNamara (1:15:45)
Really? Because I think I was just going to teen the parks, you know, got our 2015 and I felt like, oh yeah, here we go, you know, going on an adventure in that. God, there'll be a few other ones, but we're going to go with that Shifty Shellshock one because it's it's just a terrific tune. Really is a lot of fun. Very, very celebration of life kind of one. Sweet. Yeah, it's a great one.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:16:00)
class.

Perfect, awesome, it's added to the playlist.

To round out today, we're gonna do a speed round. ⁓ either answer in one word or as few words as possible. And yeah, we'll go through this. So yeah, where was your last trip?

Brinsley McNamara (1:16:09)
Mm-hmm.

Mm. Look forward to it. See you.

Wexford, Wexford, yeah, Wexford. We'll go as free as possible.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:16:25)
Yeah, and where's your next trip?

Brinsley McNamara (1:16:34)
What day is it? of May. May the 4th be with you. I don't know if I'll call it a trip, but I'm going to the Festival of Fires Hill of Uisneach on the 10th of May. I don't know you know that one. This is a longer answer. It's not that one to a trip because it's only about 25 minutes away from here. It's in Westmeath but I'm going there this Saturday. Yeah, okay, that's a-

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:16:37)
May the force be with you.

cool.

still counts! You're going to explore

and do something different that totally counts! Okay, what's your what's your dream destination? Do you have one?

Brinsley McNamara (1:16:55)
Yeah, okay, yeah, Uisneach ⁓

⁓ I kind of made my business to go to a lot of the things I'm really, really mad to go to, you know, especially over the last year. ⁓

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:17:19)
Yeah.

Brinsley McNamara (1:17:23)
might feel like a cop out kind of one but some there like there's certain counties I'm really not that familiar with and Kilkenny has got to be the one that I'm not even a million percent sure I've set my foot down on it properly. So for that reason, I'm going to say County Kilkenny. Yeah, I know.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:17:41)
Cool, that's neat.

We've talked about this a little bit already, but would you prefer to see many places or get to know one really well?

Brinsley McNamara (1:17:45)
Yeah.

The latter, get to know them well. mean, if I could be, I mean, sometimes when I was in Spain, it'd be ⁓ 3 months in a place and that would be just great to be able to live there and kind of take it in for a long time. Definitely. Yeah.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:17:59)
Yep, totally.

And you touched on this too, but for the sake of the round, bougie or budget? Yeah, yeah. Do you like to travel solo or do you prefer to travel with others?

Brinsley McNamara (1:18:05)
Budget, definitely.

With others. Yeah, with others. Yeah, yeah, yeah, both work, but with others for sure.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:18:17)
Okay, and would you prefer to travel to the ocean or outer space?

Brinsley McNamara (1:18:22)
ocean wouldn't bother with no way well I don't know what that comes outer space is like I can I know what that constitutes the ocean that could be next to where that could be in the middle of it I'll go to the ocean I wouldn't feel I wouldn't be I won't be pushed with space

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:18:34)
Okay. Do you have a favourite content creator, whether it's YouTuber, blogger, podcaster, what Instagram, whatever.

Brinsley McNamara (1:18:41)
Favourite overall, I'm gonna go with, I'm probably gonna go with Blame It On George. He's an American YouTuber. He does like Lost Media and like Internet Mysteries type content. And he's kind of like one of the big guys with that. Him or Nick Crowley, who does the same thing. ⁓ Those would be my guys, yeah.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:19:04)
Cool. Favourite mode of transportation?

Brinsley McNamara (1:19:08)
Walk, love walking, absolutely love walking. I don't like it when like a town is like a geographical island in the sense that there is no way to walk to some town. Newport, Newport, the Isle of Wight is like that, you can't walk there. There's no footpath on the road going to it. So you just kind of, it's like a geographical island, you know? I can't drive.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:19:28)
Yeah!

Interesting and you mentioned before that you don't drive was that like an attention

yet you like not interested kind of deal or

Brinsley McNamara (1:19:38)
I'll probably learn at some stage, but I'm not that pushed you know. I've got other ways of getting around. Yeah.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:19:40)
Yeah,

Plan trips or spontaneous trips?

Brinsley McNamara (1:19:46)
I would say planned, but doesn't need to be heavily planned.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:19:52)
Yeah, underpacker

or overpacker.

Brinsley McNamara (1:19:55)
Was that all like too much or too little? Underpacker.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:19:57)
Yeah.

Most overrated destination.

Brinsley McNamara (1:20:01)
I I got, you know, I I feel like, you know, I feel slightly mean saying it, but I'm not I don't think the Cliffs of Moher are really on anything major to write home about. If you go to the huh, I mean, ⁓ like, they are very, very tall, and they're cool. But they are if you go to the Aran Islands, you'll Inishmore in particular, you'll see sea cliffs.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:20:13)
I think you're entitled to your opinion. That's fine to say it.

Brinsley McNamara (1:20:27)
around most of it. And you can get right, right, right up, like right up next and crawl into your, go onto your belly and crawl up next to them look over if you like. They're not as high, but they're still spectacular and they're way less crowded than the Cliffs of Moher. ⁓ And the biggest disadvantage by far of the Cliffs of Moher right now is that most of the walkway is closed since last summer. only very, a lot of people don't know that. A lot of people don't know that. Last summer there is, like you can walk the whole.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:20:37)
Yeah.

⁓ still?

What the hell?

Brinsley McNamara (1:20:56)
Normally you can walk the whole way from Doolin and Clare to the Cliffs of and beyond that, but the whole walkway, it's about maybe a 2 hour walk, an hour and a half maybe from Doolin to Cliffs of Moher, that's all closed. You're not supposed to go there. A lot of that's closed now, they're doing safety works around it, and a lot of people don't know that when they go there. So you can view them, there is the viewing area, but it's very packed of people and I think it's a good thing that's got the safety barriers, but it means it's got more impeded views.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:21:14)
Great. Great.

Brinsley McNamara (1:21:21)
So, I mean, I don't want to trash the thing or anything like that, but I'd the, I take the Inishmore ones, you know, I take the Inishmore ones over it.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:21:28)
I've been Inishmore, but I haven't really been to the cliffs, but it's a fascinating place. And if anybody who hasn't been definitely check out the Aran Islands.

Brinsley McNamara (1:21:35)
Definitely

go to Blackfort on the, go to Blackfort there because ⁓ not many people go there. You got outstanding sea cliff views. ⁓ And it's really like when I was there, it was with me and my friend. were only 2 people there.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:21:49)
Wild. Most underrated destination.

Brinsley McNamara (1:21:50)
Yeah.

Hmm, there's definitely a bunch. One I'll just say that recently was because I was just there was was Wexford the Salty Islands. I don't if you know about those. There. So people think about islands off the coast of Ireland, they're all they normally think of the west coast of the heaps them off Mayo heaps them off Galway, Kerry heaps of islands. But and you know, it's for a reason because the east coast of Ireland doesn't have as nearly as many islands, but the Salty Islands off the coast of Wexford

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:22:03)
No.

Brinsley McNamara (1:22:22)
You can visit them a few times a day or by like a boat trip. ⁓ There's not really structures on there. But it's ⁓ I mean, I was there in good weather and it's amazing there. And it's the place it's big for birdwatchers. ⁓ puffins puffins by the puffins come up right next to you puffins aren't really that shy at all. ⁓ So you can see absolutely and it's not it's not like will I see a puffin? No, you will see a puffin. There's there every well at the right time of year you will see a puffin several of them because they come right up to you and there's loads of them. So Wexford

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:22:47)
⁓

Brinsley McNamara (1:22:52)
I mean, Wexford town itself is really, I think it's really cool. It's a nice decent sized town. The river going through it is cool. A lot of a lot, a lot, a lot of old church ruins and castle ruins. There are a huge amount of them, a pretty high concentration. And the Salty Islands are not islands you hear people talk about that much and they're actually are really cool to visit.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:23:14)
I'm putting it on my list. I'm dying to bring my camper van over to Ireland and just do like a nice 6 months, like chill pace. Mind you, the amount of things I want to see is now growing, we'll add that on. Cool. What home comfort do you miss the most when you're away or have you missed when you've been away?

Brinsley McNamara (1:23:16)
Yeah. Mm hmm. Yeah.

Yeah.

Geez, not really anything. I no, not really. I don't mind being I don't mind being I don't mind living like without without lot of things. ⁓ Naturally, I need internet for lot of things I'm doing these days my way but that's that's that's easy to get at a hot spot or whatever like that. That's simple. ⁓ I'm a big coffee fan. I've got all kinds of coffee paraphernalia at home. I won't typically bring with me but I don't mind coffee in the shop doesn't bother me at all. So, no, I'm pretty easy. Yeah.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:24:03)
Nice. What's the best piece of travel advice you've received?

Brinsley McNamara (1:24:07)
that I've received. ⁓

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:24:09)
Yeah.

Brinsley McNamara (1:24:17)
It's like it's it's I'm just gonna give him my favourite one, even though it's not one I've used. was getting I was hitching a lift. I got a lift off a guy called Dennis, I think was his name. And this was in England. And I don't know what I really don't know why he was saying it to me. I think it was just making conversation. But he was talking about when you pull out when you're driving on the road. And he was like, when you're driving, what the hell? What did he say again? It's always funny why you say he saying it to me or something like when you're driving, you need to make up that's it.

it is kind of good advice. When you're driving, you need to make a plan and stick with it. And then everyone will react around you. Because if you don't know what to do, people don't know how to react around you. And it was just more funny. Like, I don't know why he's telling me this. I'm not like, I wasn't driving then and I didn't drive at all. I was hitching, so I clearly didn't drive. ⁓ But he saying it with such certainty. And I don't know, it's just kind of fun. But I see where he's coming from. That's my favourite advice, yeah.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:24:56)
Yep.

I'm out.

Ahahaha!

Okay, cool. What about the worst piece of travel advice you've received or heard?

Brinsley McNamara (1:25:16)
Worst piece of travel advice. Oh, geez, I mean, it's not advice, but public transport is only really grown in Ireland some pretty recently. I remember I was outside Gorey and I was trying to find out how to get into Gorey in Wexford. This was last summer. I went around, I thought there was a bus there and I went to a guy at a garage across the road, was in the countryside, and I was like, a bus go there? And he was like, no, no, it only goes in the morning. And I was like, and I was like, damn, we have to look for a taxi or something. The next thing the bus appears.

And it turns out there was a really regular bus line there, but he must have just driven all the time. didn't really, because when you drive, don't notice that there's buses around the place. ⁓ So I won't call that bad advice, but, no, you know what, I nearly even scratched that. When ⁓ I tell people I'm going to go hitching in the UK, or I'm going to hitching when I was in Ireland or something like that, they would really frequently say, you won't get a lift. They would say that, people say that all the time, you won't get a lift, not like years ago. And you always get a lift, you get a lift in 10 minutes.

less sometimes, you know? If you want to, if you want to.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:26:18)
Everybody get out and hitchhike. ⁓

Yeah, yeah. ⁓ On the plane or train, window seat or aisle seat.

Brinsley McNamara (1:26:28)
Window.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:26:29)
Describe yourself as a traveller in 3 words.

Brinsley McNamara (1:26:36)
Traveller in 3 words. It doesn't even need to be a sentencing. We just 3 random words. ⁓ Energetic, eccentric. I want to do another E. ⁓ Economical. There we go.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:26:43)
Yeah.

Cool, ooh, I like that.

Three characteristics that make a good travel partner, because you travel with your friends a bunch, right? Yeah.

Brinsley McNamara (1:27:01)
Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah. Kind of like a general like, agreeability with each other kind of thing and having no problem with with changing your plans. mean, cousin Freddie we hitched from Malin Head to Mizen Head last summer. And and there was a bar in Malin Head. Farren's is most northerly bar in mainland Ireland. And he was like, even the way to get to a B &B, he was like, Oh, we go in there for a bit. And I was like, Oh, yeah, we go in there for a bit. Yeah. And we kind of just following with your plans all the time.

But then we did absolutely brilliant, brilliant night in there. So it's going to be around somebody who's kind of flexible, flexible and agreeable with things.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:27:34)
I find

the best nights are always the unplanned ones too, or the best.

Brinsley McNamara (1:27:38)
Oh, that was the best

night of last summer. That was the best night of last summer. It was absolutely brilliant in Farren's. It was like a Wednesday. It was a Wednesday night. was rammed. It was absolutely rammed in there. Wednesday night in July and the pub quiz was on. You couldn't even walk through the place. It was that fun. Yeah.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:27:51)
Wow, okay,

all right. What's the best part of travel for you?

Brinsley McNamara (1:27:59)
That's gotta be I'd say be meeting the people I love I love meeting people of hangout or people whether it's like people in the hostels always think it's a of a lot of fun because they're always in the same, know, they want to meet other people too or Yeah, that kind of thing. I mean the people, know, I find that the most fun. Yeah

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:28:13)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally. What about the worst part?

Brinsley McNamara (1:28:16)
Worst part about travelling? You say, yeah, like, have you ever seen Fargo? Oh, have ever seen it? It's in Minnesota, it's based in Minnesota. Yeah, they're like, yeah. They say it like that, yeah.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:28:18)
Yeah.

No.

Minnesota!

Brinsley McNamara (1:28:33)
Great movie one of my favourites. Worst part about travelling? ⁓ I don't know I mean just how Just the fact that it costs quite a lot of money to be able to do it We've even on a budget but the work but the other thing is there's no real Very hard to make money whilst you're doing it So if I could just do a constantly all the time I probably would but there's not really that consistent way to make money while you're doing it It always costs him money to do it ⁓ even if

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:28:53)
Mm.

Brinsley McNamara (1:29:01)
Even if you do it really well now, you're really like hitching and doing it all like that, won't spend a whole lot, you really won't spend a whole lot of money. But yeah, it's gotta be that part of it.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:29:08)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. What about the best travel app?

Brinsley McNamara (1:29:12)
⁓ It's a cop out, but Google Maps is just absolutely brilliant. It's just necessary. It's brilliant to get travel routes on it. ⁓ And public travel routes are kind of not as useful in Ireland. I will say that when I was in the UK, like I said, with Hitchwiki and all that kind of thing, those are great sites. One I used to use a lot was, I don't remember the name of it, but there was like this website in the UK where it had the list of all the service stations in the UK.

And it had a really, really detailed description of the service stations in the UK. So you'd know if it was what hours it was open, if it was open 24 hours, if there was toilets there, what facilities were there, and what side of the road it was on. you know, it was actually for hitchhiking, was an amazing website to know what service station you were getting to, what it was like, or where they could leave you off.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:29:58)
It sounds similar to that website. think it's still in use, like the Sleeping in Airports one. ⁓ it's a good one. I've used it.

Brinsley McNamara (1:30:02)
Oh, that one, yeah, yeah, I never used that. Hitchwiki,

Hitchwiki would tell you all that same stuff as well. you know, actually I have used it, but Hitchwiki does the same thing. We'll say Hitchwiki. Well, Hitchwiki slash that service station one slash Google Maps. That's not a website, but it's an app, yeah.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:30:15)
Okay, okay.

All right, and 2 more for you and then you're off the hook. Favourite travel book or movie? And it doesn't have to be like about a travel, it could be something that's set in another destination as well.

Brinsley McNamara (1:30:20)
Uh-huh.

The first first thing that shot into my head, so I made sure to go with it, was the Motorcycle Diaries or Ernesto Guevara. Have you read it?

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:30:34)
Yes,

yeah, and seen the movie. Yeah. Yeah.

Brinsley McNamara (1:30:38)
Yeah, the books better. I think the movie's good. The movies are really, you know, I mean, it's not one of the best movies going but it was a nice adaptation of it. No, the book's great. Ernesto Guevara and his buddy, I can't remember his buddy's name, but then Motorcycling from Argentina to Colombia, I think. I read that when I was a teenager, I think, or maybe when I was like, maybe in college and I thought it was a great kind of fun story of adventure like that. yeah, I'm gonna go with that Motorcycle Diaries Ernesto Guevara, Ernesto Che Guevara. Yeah.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:31:05)
class

and best gift for a traveller.

Brinsley McNamara (1:31:13)
Bye!

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:31:13)
People have

been pretty creative with this one, so you can think outside the box if you want to.

Brinsley McNamara (1:31:16)
Maybe I I mean best gift for trying to think what things I want when I'm out kind of travelling or that kind of thing. ⁓ the Weird Ireland book. Yeah, yeah, you could say that you could say that I was gonna say something like I don't know. mean, I was gonna say something like I was hitching one time in England and a guy wasn't gonna give me a lift. He just walked up and asked me about it. And I was like all this and this.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:31:27)
Weird Ireland Buck.

Brinsley McNamara (1:31:43)
and then just pulls that cigarette out and just gives it to me. I wasn't even smoking at the time, but I was like, thanks, held on to it. Oh, that was a great gift from me at the time. I loved that, yeah.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:31:48)
Okay.

All right. Well, Brinsey, thank you so much for coming on the podcast today. This was really enjoyable. I appreciate you taking the time to come and chat and share all your stories with us. Yeah.

Brinsley McNamara (1:32:00)
That's been a lot of fun. Thanks. Thanks. Thanks Tara very

much and let me know I know you said you're in Ireland in September Do you know how long you're around for that?

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:32:07)
Haven't decided yet. Usually like I come for something and then I usually tack on a few other visits or locations while I'm there. So we'll see. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. Yeah. So just to recap, where can people find you and is there anything else that you'd like to add before we say, you later.

Brinsley McNamara (1:32:09)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, let me know. We'll be in touch anyways.

⁓ Well, you can find me on Instagram Weird Ireland is Weird dot Ireland is the actual handle there Weird Ireland on tik tok just all one word, know on with no dot on tik tok. Those are the biggest places for it. ⁓ The podcast is called just called Weird Ireland podcast is is available on Spotify Apple podcast even on the Weird Ireland YouTube channel all major streaming services. ⁓ The book Weird Ireland and Unofficial Guide to the island by Brinsley McNamara myself.

is available to buy if you can get it on amazon.com amazon.co.uk or any other kind of bookseller like that. I think you can get it on walmart even.com and in the UK and Ireland it's a lot more available in actual bookshops as well. Anything else to share? Well, I I'm only just getting, I took a mini break there in April. The podcast is going to be as best as our ability coming out weekly. There's going to be videos coming out every day if not every few days. If not every day it'll be very regular again.

So stay tuned to all of that and there might be more interesting things coming in the more near future. Keep an eye out for it. ⁓ Talk soon. Bye, bye Tara.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:33:28)
Awesome. Thank you so much. We'll talk soon. Bye.