It is an uneventful journey between Ennistymon and Limerick, provided that nothing is coming in the opposite direction; and it was not until I arrived in Limerick that the trials of the afternoon began.

On the huge maps in the Falls Hotel, with much ingenuity, I had worked out a way by which I could cut 15 miles off the recognised route between Lahinch and Ballybunion, and also have a look at the seaplane base-to-be at Foynes.

I asked a man fooling about with a petrol pump how one got to

Foynes. Since the side curtains were up I had to open the door to do it, and immediately the wind caught all the waste paper and the socks, and blew them into his face. With the information that I

obtained from a second, and more fortunate, citizen I left Limerick by the banks of the Shannon.

For an hour it was very dull. The Shannon seemed to have disappeared, and then I came to Foynes. Foynes does look different to the ordinary country village. I got a swift impression of an unusually broad main street, lined by flowered cottages and then, in speechless excitement, saw three huge, silver-grey petrol storage tanks. I was reminded of a recent March of Time description of the new seaplane route connecting Australia and America. An island in the

Pacific was transformed into a weather examination station. Here was

Foynes, miles from anywhere, being made ready to receive the great flying boats from across the Atlantic. I half closed my eyes to visualise them roaring over the still waters of the river, and missed an aged labourer in a donkey cart by a foot.

Now I drove alongside, and sometimes nearly into, the Shannon.

The road was good and the sun was shining, and there was every chance that, with careful nursing and diligent attention to high tea, the wordlessly depressing ravages of the past five days might conceivably be repaired. Beyond the farthest range of hills must lie the sea and

Ballybunion.

I left the tarred road at the direction of a sign-post, and carried on confidently up a narrow, stonestrewn lane. A few miles farther I had to admit that the peasantry were staring at the

Fire-engine in a manner that suggested they had never seen a motor car before. Twenty minutes later and it seemed improbable that they had as yet set eyes on a bicycle. The road had degenerated into two deep cart tracks, with almost virgin grass between them. "Am I right for Ballybunion?" I asked. The child, with a wail of terror, vanished into its home. A couple of goats shot out. Probably there wasn't room for all three inside.

This went on for what seemed hours. Continually the lanes branched off into three or four different pathways. High hedges cut off entirely the outside world. I drove faster and faster, wishing to heaven it would end. Stones crashed against the mudguards, and once the branch of a tree swept with a terrifying screech along the hood.

Just two punctures in succession and one day years hence a wandering gypsy would find a heap of bleached bones by a little red car sinking into the primeval slime.

I came to the coast, and with Alice murmured: "Come now, we're getting on." (Alice may never have murmured "Come now, we're getting on," but at least she murmured something very like it.) Ballybunion was on the coast, I was by the mouth of the Shannon, and Ballybunion was south of the Shannon on the coast. The thing was foolproof. I

followed the coast road, and began to swear silently, appallingly, as the coast road lost its head and began to head due east towards

Limerick. Fortunately, it recovered itself, and having come 112 miles instead of 84, I entered Ballybunion by a road which led me past the back gardens of the Ballybunion residents. This difficulty, too, was straightened out - and I found a roaring fire in the Central Hotel.

I have one complaint to make about the hotel at Ballybunion, and it's less of a complaint than a somewhat exhausted witticism. They gave you sufficient food in the hotel at Ballybunion to choke an elephant deprived of its buns for one calendar month. And when you give up after an hour's eating the waitress gets sad and says,

"Didn't you enjoy your dinner?" I had, the first hundredweight.

Rather nervously, and wholly soberly, I began to examine my suitcase. Packing since the previous Friday had been a scrappy business, but nonchalant and all as I was I could see that something was wrong. In the first place, there were the two huge, leather belts. In 1920 I owned an elastic belt in red and yellow, with a snake buckle, but since that year I have had as little to do with belts as any other individual in Europe. I'd have understood one leather belt getting into my luggage, or even a box of corn plasters, but two leather belts - well! Then there was a spray of razor blades, representative of all the well-known makes, three shaving brushes, and a small jar of Germolene. None of these articles had been with me in the beginning.

On the debit side, however, appeared the following: two pullovers, a tie, a pair of bedroom slippers and an alarm clock, brought for heaven knows what reason. I faced the loss of the last with resignation; but I began to cast about in my mind to find the possible thieves of the first three. Nothing came, which was hardly surprising.

Just as I was going up to bed very early they asked me if I would like a hot water bottle. "Could I have a look at it?" I asked. They couldn't grasp what was going on for a long time, and they understood even less when I fled from the great cast-iron, oblong thing that they produced.

The next day was bitterly cold, with a strong breeze, flying clouds and bright sunshine. The cold had taken on a new lease of life, and the course at Ballybunion presented an appearance of desolation. I began with the Vardon fade, just scraped 30 yards over the road, and finished miserably in mud. My number four iron shot was more of a gesture than an actual blow, and the next one finished about three yards from the hole. I sank the putt, because, if at

Ballybunion you hit the ball firmly at the hole, it will drop every time. There is a growth of strong wiry grass on the greens that even in its untended state makes the perfect putting surface. Everywhere the growth is uniform, and the speed of all the greens is identical.

The fairways, if anything, are better. There is that real spring in them that other seaside courses claim, but which often fails to materialise.

I cannot, in fact, say too good a word for Ballybunion. Every second shot seems to be up to a plateau green, and if you're off the line from the tee, abandon all hope of making your iron shot stop.

Particularly I remember one of the short holes, a 202 yarder. On this particular day the wind was dead ahead, and you had to hit a spoon shot all uphill onto a green from which the ground fell away on every side.

Then there was a hole near the end where a brassie shot must be steered between a ten yard opening in two hills (you can pick up if you're not straight off the tee); and the last two holes are two of the longest fives I know. At the 18th I hit two enormous wooden shots with my eyes shut, topped a mashie niblick so that it bored its way two feet from the ground into the teeth of the wind, and only just reached the edge of the green.

I believe that "The Ladies" as they are rightly known, are holding their championship there in June; and if the wind is blowing in the same direction, and with the same violence as I experienced, "The

Ladies" will have to forget some of their elegance and take a good running jump at the thing. They can, however, take the good running jump with their drivers; for Ballybunion is the only course I know on which it is both possible and pleasant to take a driver on the fairway. (To be continued)