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Financial Times, Saturday 28, 1989
Oyster opening, well now there's a thing by Kieran cooke
The ideas that one in the West of Ireland are extraordinary. They come at you unannounced out of the white swirling mists and the black foaming pints: great, momentous, monumental sparks of the imagination. Like the one I had about the next Olympics. I am proud to announce a new event that will take Barcelona by storm and restore the tarnished steroid-ridden Olympic image. Oyster opening.
Willie Moran, of County Clare, in the wild west of Ireland, would be one of the favourites. He can open 30 oysters in one minute and 31 seconds. Any amateur confronting a tightly closed oyster knows that Willie's feat is the equivalent of running a three-minute mile and doing a 40ft jump at the same time.
No medically unsupervised record attempts should be undertaken. Many a hand has been hopelessly speared in an effort to gain access to an oyster jealously guarding it privacy. But if any of you think I am talking through my much rained upon, sat upon, slept upon flat hat, ask Willie himself.
He and his family run a public house specialising in the art of oyster swallowing just outside Clarenbridge on Galway Bay. It is at the end of a narrow winding road by the shore, best navigated very carefully. More specific directions are useless. Just ask. The answer will be something like: "Leaving the creamery on your left and St. Mary Magdelene's on your right, you go due west for a mile and a bit."
The mile is a mile. The bit is about three.' ....
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