I'm not sure if I will be able to give an accurate account of my meal at The Monastery Inn in Clonard, as I was in a baaad state of mind at the time.
Three of us were attempting to cycle from Dublin to Galway along the Grand Canal. This sounded like a good idea in theory, as the one branch of the Grand Canal extends as far as Ballinasloe, and we figured that it would be nice and flat for the whole way, as people don't tend to build canals up hills (all the water would run away, d'ye see).
However, it emerged that this plan was a bit ill-conceived, as large sections of the canal bank were overgrown, and anyone that has done it can testify to the fact that cycling through long grass is a killer. Instead of cycling in 15th/18th gear at 20-25miles per hour (which we would need to do if we wanted to get to Galway by nightfall), we were cycling in 4th/5th gear at something like 5 miles an hour. It was clear at this point that we were going to have to abandon our canal plan, and we were glad to be shot of them. As my friend John put it, "Fuck you canals, no wonder you never caught on!"
So we abandoned the canal at Sallins. However, to get to the road that was going to bring us to Galway, we were going to have to cycle about 15 kilometres due north to get onto the N4. Due north - as in back in the direction of Dublin. We were not best pleased.
At one stage we passed a sign that told us that we were only forty kilometres from Dublin (this was after cycling around for hours). It was depressing.
We decided to have lunch in Kinnegad, which wasn't miles and miles away but which was far enough away to give us a proper goal to strive for.
I can understand why they built the new motorway, as the national primary roads follow a twisted and tortuous route to Galway. We were originally in Kildare (south-west of Dublin), and now for some inexplicable reason, we were in Meath (north-west of Dublin). It was very confusing and debilitating, so we nixed our plans for Kinnegad and stopped at the first place we spotted that served food, The Monastery Inn in Clonard.
The Monastery Inn is a pleasant enough pub, nothing special really. It was very quiet when we were there, though this was still very early in the day. We all got main courses (about twelve or thirteen euros each); I had bacon and cabbage, which was grand.
Then the post postprandial dip kicked in and we got all lethargic and disheartened. We had been cycling for hours and we were still in Meath. Fuck it, Galway was scrapped, we decided to keep going and hope for the best. Feeling very pleased with this new resolution, two of us ordered new meals from the kids menu (chicken nuggets and chips, ya can't go wrong), while the third menu of our party went out to sleep in a field, as he was a very tired boy. When the proprietor heard that we were ordering two new main courses ("Jaysus, are yez? Where's yer man?"), and when we told him that our friend was sleeping in a field, he creased himself laughing.
We were very pleasantly surprised when we got the bill: three mains and two kids meals was only €46. We had all drank at 2 or 3 pints of blackcurrant each (need to keep your blood-sugar up, don't ya know) and were expecting to be charged for them, but fair play to The Monastery Inn, they were free.
Only gripe with the place was the service was a teeny bit slow considering that there weren't many in the place, but they probably weren't expecting us to order a second meal each.
All in all, very decent spot for lunch. read more