Love in the Eire

IT'S a spirited claim which may be hard to swallow for the Scots - but a top whiskey expert in Ireland insists that the drink was invented on the Emerald Isle.

- RAY O'SHAUGHNESSY

Timmy Donovan tells a convincing tale of how monks near Athlone worked on perfumes from the Middle East to perfect the art of distillation and create the powerful aqua vitae - water of life - almost 1,000 years ago.

The monks, based near the banks of the River Shannon, later spread their wings and set up churches in Iona and other Scottish isles where they brought distillation with them.

The rest, as they say, is history with whiskey becoming "moon- shine" in the US and a huge industry across the world.

The Irish version is, of course, spelled with an "e" but that got lost somewhere across the Irish Sea and it is whisky in Scotland, which also lays claim to being the real home of the spirit. Scots experts argue that whisky-making began in the country as winemaking methods spread from monasteries in Europe.

Monks, who had no access to grapes, used grain mash instead.

Timmy, who is working on a Netflix series about the origins of whiskey, recounts his tale in the historic Sean's Bar in Athlone, which dates from 900AD, making it the oldest pub in Ireland and possibly the world.

Athlone - right in the heart of the country - is the launch point for our exploration of the wonders of the Shannon by cruise. Tourism chiefs are keen to encourage visitors to look beyond the well-trodden paths to Dublin, Cork and Galway and delve into the 'Hidden Heartlands'.