I CANNOT tell ye where I was last Saturday evening for reasons which will soon become obvious. Suffice it to say that it was in West Clare as part of my continuing summer odyssey. And that much of what happened occurred in and around a pub in which a donkey was shod a few years ago, in which fletches of bacon hang from the ceiling and in which, by local count, at least 100 matches have been made down the last century or so.

We are in the latter half of 2007 now. It is alleged that Ireland is changing rapidly as it prospers, losing much of the old ways because of the Celtic Tiger.

It is also commonly alleged here that we are becoming increasingly Americanized and Europeanized, losing much of our crazy individuality as a nation. All of that may well be true at least in part.

What is also true, however, especially in rural Ireland, is that much of the old spirit survives. And that’s great.

I was driving my party on Saturday night. I had one pint of beer when we arrived in the village, Coca-Colas thereafter. So my recollection is sharply accurate.

There are three pubs in the village I speak of, and we arrived about 11 o’clock with 90 minutes of legal drinking time left. In the pub where the donkey was shod, where we started, the crowd was so large that we had trouble getting inside the door.

This, we learned, was because of the 60th birthday party of a very popular man from the next parish. He could be heard singing in the back lounge (“Put More Turf on the Fire Maryanne”) from the main road outside.

The atmosphere was lively in the extreme, the partygoers about equally male and female. We got our drinks and stools and joined in.

The interior of the front bar would not have been changed one iota since the day they shod the donkey at the bar. On the top shelves the old pots and pans (and chamber pots) of yesteryear made a great and glittering show.

The singing never stopped for the hour we were there as the party got into full swing. Men were drinking pints as if in the last hours before Judgment Day. Women were not holding back either.

We left at midnight to go on a village pub crawl. A hundred yards away was a slightly more modernized pub. It had its own regulars, maybe 20 of them, also enjoying their Saturday night out.

On closer examination several of these were those, like ourselves, on a village pub crawl. The atmosphere was pleasant, warm relaxed. We shared some craic with the nearest tables over one drink.

Then we went back up the street to the third pub. It was not raining. A pleasant night.

The third pub may well be the longest established of the three. Half of it is still a grocery shop, a trading shop at that, not a mockshop just for show. It featured the big old glass jars full of sweets and chocolate bars.

My friends said the pints were excellent. The atmosphere was again good. The high bar was one of the highest I’ve ever stood beside. The proprietor was courteous.

We crossed the street. We went back to the party. The crowd was now larger, the singers and musicians just getting into their stride. It was concentrated in the back lounge, which was crammed solid.

We again found corners in the front bar, and my friends downed their pints with relish amidst conversations with both new and old friends. Clare is an intimate society.

One of my friends met a man he plays cards against in card tournaments. Another met an old acquaintance. I, having a public job in the county in the media, met many.

I also was tipped off to a good story developing in the region. It is at this stage one in the morning. The party is revving up, not abating.

Somewhere about 1:30 I am prevailed upon to sing a song in the back lounge. It’s a hard job when you are only drinking Coke but I managed. There was loud applause, as there was for all the singers.

Everybody called upon to sing or recite readily did so. The atmosphere was terrific. Plates came around laden with slices of bacon, salty, moist, mustard and sauce on the side, perfect accompaniment to pints of porter!

Is this Ireland 2007? Yes it is. And there’s more.

It would have been about 1:45 in the morning when a three man band making their way home from a gig came in the door, attracted by the crowds spilling outside and the prospect of a late drink. They were known to several in the crowd.

Inside 10 minutes, fortified with whiskey, they had been prevailed upon to set up their equipment and “play a few tunes.” The young lads were game for it.

By 2:15 a.m. they were plugged in to the mains and pounding it out. Is this Ireland 2007 or is it not? Yes it is.

By 2:30 they were playing a mixture of rock ‘n’ roll and Irish. And by three in the morning when all Europe was sleeping except for clubbers there were Clare men and women jiving and waltzing and doing sets in spaces they created themselves in the heart of the throng.

And the liveliest of them all was the 60-year old birthday boy. As light on his feet as a fairy.

I dragged my exhausted party together and put them in the car at 4 a.m.! The party was still flying high, the music coming up the chimneys and out the windows. Nobody was going home bar ourselves.

But we’d already been invited to partake in two further parties, a little deeper out in West Clare, between now and the middle of September. We will go.

I checked the next day and the merriment eventually ended sometime between 6-7 a.m. But there was also what they call a healing session from about 11 a.m. on Sunday, the birthday boy at the heart of it again, and they were singing “Sean South of Garryowen” before noon.

It might be illegal in this new nannified society. It might run against the bland nine-to-six tide of modernity.

But as I drove home with my righteous bellyful of Coke I was saying to myself, God bless Clare.

For being what it is.