After a lunch that culminated in port, having begun on much the same lines, I started the penultimate lap of my tour. I reorganised the Fire-engine, collected all the socks and old newspapers, stowed away the side curtains and fastened the tonneau cover neatly down. The cold had given up its offensive, and everything was going with smooth efficiency.

Between Cork and Rosslare, there are numerous stretches of concrete, by far the best type of road surface, and there is one long, straight downhill bit upon which it would be possible to do 100 miles an hour for a second or two. Here the Fire-engine recorded her greatest velocity in the circuit of Ireland - 64 miles an hour - and the shivering figure behind the steering wheel took a long, long time to recover.

Mother Nature in her Abundant Glory is particularly in evidence on this drive, and there is a panorama of Dungarvan from the hills above the town that nearly makes up for the two hairpin bends you have to negotiate. Somehow, in these days of fast motor roads, the motorist gets out of touch with hairpin bends, and, not very impressed by the warning notices, I took the first of these swiftly and scornfully. It's alright until you're three-quarters of the way round, and then it becomes apparent that further progress on the recognised road is impossible.

On the long hill down into Waterford, or it might have been Wexford, I, the Fire-engine, a brown bull and an agricultural worker became involved in a situation. The agricultural worker had removed his boots and wore them slung around his neck. He had the bull at the end of a hawser. His plan about the boots was good under two given forms of circumstance - (1) While the bull was well astern; (2) While the bull was well ahead - but it broke down entirely while the bull was alongside. As I approached the bull was in the lead but the colour of the Fire-engine drove him back to his master. His master received him grudgingly and, as I swept past, I could see the agricultural worker making frantic and invariably unsuccessful attempts to keep the bull's hooves off his own bare feet. I looked back, and somebody else was holding the bull while the agricultural worker resumed his boots.

So far I had not taken a single wrong turning, and, uneasy at this miracle, I almost welcomed the two signposts "Rosslare Harbour" and "Rosslare Strand". It was five miles to Rosslare Harbour, and three miles to Rosslare Strand. Did I want to go to Rosslare Harbour or, alternatively, to Rosslare Strand? The AA seemed to think I wanted to go to Rosslare Harbour and, accordingly, to Rosslare Harbour I decided to go. It proved to be utterly and entirely wrong.

I admit there are bungalows at Rosslare Harbour, but I imagine they are inhabited by those who can find no room to live at Rosslare Strand. Certainly, if your interest in shipping is fragmentary, you're in for a thin time at Rosslare Harbour. There are ships, a harbour and nothing else. I drove past the odd dozen bungalows looking for the hotel, turned down towards the sea and finished in the yard of an apparently disused chicken farm. Back I went past the odd dozen bungalows and stopped a knowledgeable looking lad who was throwing stones at a pig.

"There isn't a hotel here," I said, more in the way of a question than as a statement of fact. He took it as a statement of fact, agreed laconically, and scored a painful inner on the pig.

"Is there a hotel here?" I tried, making an effort to draw him.

"No." And the pig sprang heavily into the air.

"Where is there a hotel?" I asked, pretty well at my last gasp.

"The nearest hotel is five miles back. You take the first on the left, and carry on into the village. In the village you will see a church. By the church there is a turn to the right. Take that road and it will bring you to Rosslare Strand in about ten minutes." He was only waiting for a fair chance.

The directions were accurate and the hotel was found without difficulty. I ordered what probably would have been the best bacon and eggs I had ever eaten, but, unluckily, a child in a little cap and blazer was playing Auld Lang Syne in the drawing room, and on the piano. "Little cap and blazer" is no affectionate diminutive, but a bitterly phrased description of the child's dress. The things simply were too small for him. He played Auld Lang Syne well if you set him a uselessly low standard, but his industry was beyond all possibility of reproach. He gave us Auld Lang Syne 214 times, and then came into the pits on the 215th lap with some minor mechanical trouble. He put himself right in a moment, and was away more strongly than ever. I finished my bacon and eggs in a condition of anger that bid fair to blow the front wall out of the hotel if once unleashed, and then strode into the drawing room. Expecting the child to fly the room in an ecstasy of embarrassment I listened to Auld Lang Syne played twice more in incredulous horror.

"That's finished my practice," said the little lad with a warm smile in my direction and trotted from the room. It's going to be awful when he gets Auld Lang Syne perfected, for he'll never stop, lost in admiration at his own virtuosity.

My breakfast was brought to me in bed, and as I lifted a portion of the first egg to my mouth it started again. "Should auld acqaintance be forgot" - a pause to establish the fingering - "and never brought to mind?" Rapidly I ate, shaved, dressed and fled.

A fourball had been arranged with three young gentlemen, one of whom had defeated me in the first round at Galway two years ago, and once again I heard the troublesome words "a little something before we start?" A little something before we start inevitably ends ups with something much more after we've finished, and I refused.

Sixpence had been agreed upon as a fair reward for birdies and by the end of the round the opposition had scored six and the home team nothing. The home team, of which I was a useless member, was topping them straight, but not sufficiently far.

Those in charge of Rosslare golf course are engaged in an eternal struggle with nature, and nature seems eager for a decisive victory. The course is laid out on flat ground between the sandhills and the village. Sometimes, it appears, parts of it are flooded and always sand blows off the shore and ruins everything. There also are cows on the course, and to restrain them the greens have to be fenced off with wire.

The three young gentlemen spoke wistfully of building a new course at Kilmore, some miles inland; but it would be a pity to abandon Rosslare. There is the backbone of a fine course there, and, unlike some seaside links, you are not playing blind over sandhills all the time. To protect it from sand, however, seems an almost impossible job, and the continually renewed deposits certainly have had a bad effect on the greens.

We moved back to the hotel for lunch and, if the lad in the little cap and blazer had been at his work, he might never have played again. We lunched interminably, yet, on my part, cautiously; and I left for Dublin, home, and beauty with the feeling that through a dangerous fortnight, I had preserved my sense of duty unscathed.