For people who live in Ireland, the West represents something not far removed from the quintessential American West. It's the last bastion of individual freedom as our increasingly bureaucratic state attempts to order and control each and every part of our lives. In the West the clock runs slowly, people have time for one another; hurry and haste are of another world. There are still parts of north Mayo where you could drive for most a day and see nary another car. A few sheep, maybe, perhaps a tractor, but the road is essentially yours.
It's a paradox: it's the peace and serenity that makes people visit it, in numbers that go some way to destroying that very tranquility. But it's a short invasion; June, July and August and then it belongs once more to its wildlife. Despite the short season there are plenty of good places to eat and some that are good enough to rank among European continental restaurants. What they have in the West of Ireland that Europe would kill for, is access to really fresh fish straight out of the Atlantic.

On the Atlantic side of the Bearra peninsula in Ireland's Southwest, you can find the town of Eyeries and Causkey's Bar, a great place for a stop to admire the view. The little town of Eyeries, which nestles on the coast, is a Technicolor delight. Each house is painted in bright and differing colours - Stockholm Yellow, Aegean Blue, Ford Fiesta Green and Bordello Pink - all of which create a magical effect against the skyline. On a sunny day it can look almost Mediterranean, with the dramatic coastline reminding me of some of the Heptanese Islands.

Following the road south from Eyeries, after more spectacular coastline you come to Allihies, which also sits resplendent in its multicoloured glory. In the middle of Allihies is O'Neill's Bar and Restaurant, where good food can be had. We got there sort of mid-afternoon, so I was half-expecting to find no food. Instead, we found a pretty full menu, all of which was available and all of which can be had throughout the day. Arriving to eat in mid-afternoon means you can't eat too much, especially if you're planning to be going out for dinner, but the menu in O'Neill's makes perfect allowance for moments such as these with a selection of simple, but tasty dishes. Much of the menu is seafood, to the delight of my wife, and she immediately settled on an open crab sandwich, while I chose a bacon ciabatta. A few years ago you'd have been hard pressed to find anyone in this country who knew what ciabatta was, let alone have it on a menu. Changes like this are a big plus, in my opinion. A pint and a half of lager accompanied these two dishes. A bill for €21.15 covered this most perfect of snack lunches.

North of the Bearra peninsula is Kenmare, a small town that has more than its share of good places to eat. It has two 5 star hotels, The Park, which is in the town itself, and Sheen Falls Lodge, which is a little outside the town. The hotels have been a magnet for the kind of tourists everyone wants: the kind with a lot of disposable income. If there's one thing that strikes you the moment you walk into Sheen Falls Lodge it's the level of finish. Everything you look at, whether it's a light fitting or a curtain, reeks of quality and expense, and even before you use a bathroom you already know that the water will blast out of the showerhead just like it does in America. It may be rural Ireland, but the plumbing is very twenty-first century.

The dining room is called La Cascade, and as you might have guessed from its name it overlooks the falls. The room is on two levels, the lower level being alongside the windows. It's a long room, its principal feature being the spectacular view of the floodlit falls. If you'd been brought here blindfolded you'd know you were in a hotel dining room - big upholstered chairs with arm rests, large tables and plenty of space between them give it away. The dinner menu has four courses, carries many choices and has a set price of €65. Eight starters, seven main courses and eight desserts are on offer, among them dishes such as Sheen Falls's very own smoked salmon from the Kenmare river, a terrine of foie gras and duck confit, native oysters with Beluga caviar, fillet of John Dory and monkfish with hazelnuts.

The wine list is impressive in length, it's some thirty pages long, cataloguing wines from all over the world. It takes a while to read, and if your budget is limited you'd need to scan it very carefully indeed to find the wines that are under €30. The mark up is steeper than normal, but to offset that you're in a five-star hotel and Jean-Bernard the sommelier can really help you through the list.

Kenmare is absurdly picturesque, neatly laid out and very colourful. Its general air of business belies its population of 1,350 - you'd swear you were in a town five times that size. We'd come to meet John Brennan, who runs the Park Hotel. They'd just closed down for the winter, so he suggested a lunch in 'Jam', a new deli cum snack bar. As we walked the bustling streets John gave me another statistic. 'There are 42 places to eat in Kenmare, that's more places than there are pubs.' There can't be many towns in Ireland that can make the same claim.

Jam was jammed. It took us a while to get a table, and then we took our place in the self-service queue. The first thing you pass is the display of desserts, and if you hadn't had a full Irish breakfast you'd have been drooling with anticipation. Beautifully made and large in portion I eyed them longingly. Passing that counter we came to the hot foods; various quiches and pies looking equally tempting. I went traditional and picked out what we used to call 'bacon and egg pie', which was really good. The others had a variety of dishes before them - a vegetarian quiche, salads and pies. When we'd finished those, John would brook no argument; 'you have to taste the desserts' he said definitively, and in a moment there was a lemon cake, a banoffi and cream and chocolate on the table looking so tempting that we all succumbed. By the way, a half-litre bottle of mineral water in Jam costs €1.50. Why can't it always be at that price?

There's a strong sense on the Kerry coast that you're getting three thousand miles worth of Atlantic weather at full bore. Nothing to slow it up until it hits the shore-line. I swear I saw bits of vertical sea, approaching at high speed, intent on smashing all their kinetic energy onto the land. Times like these make me glad I don't earn my living from fishing at sea. Never the less, we decided to drive to Valentia Island, a blessed place warmed by the Gulf Stream. The drive was wonderful, the rawness of the topography making the Wicklow hills look like a manicured garden. We pulled up near the bridge in Portmagee and looked across to Valentia island. Too cold to stay outside, we went in to The Moorings and sat beside the fire. A sea-food basket for my wife and fresh grilled mackerel for me were all just perfect. Not only was I warm and dry, but here was mackerel just out of the sea and on my plate. The freshness and simple but expert preparation of these dishes was a delight. It even made our conversation stop briefly as we put our noses to the trough. Beers, wine, Bloody Marys and tea accompanied this meal and here's the real joy of it - the bill was less than €30. Maybe you have to be outside the capital to get value like this, but places like The Moorings can only help the tourism industry.

It may be wild and raw, but the West represents all that is idiosyncratic in the Irish character. It will haunt you and charm you, at times it may even infuriate you, but it's never dull.