By Adri Pray
Contributing Writer
WESTBOROUGH — In his lifetime so far, Dave McGrath estimates he’s taken over 1 million steps across Ireland.
The 51-year-old Westborough native and author completed his second tour of the country in three weeks in a journey that spanned from Shannon to Derry over a 230-mile distance. That he walked. For the second time.
“I think two years ago was harder because I didn’t know what to expect,” he said in an interview. “I hadn’t done it before, and like anything, once you’ve done it, you know what to expect.”
Photo/Submitted
In all, McGrath has seen 500 miles of the country by foot. His first grand walking tour of Ireland in 2023 took him another over 200 miles from Dublin to Dingle, and he wrote a book about the experience called “500,000 Steps Across Ireland” that was published earlier this year.
The book outlines McGrath’s four-week journey and touches on personal anecdotes based on the people he met in his travels. These trips are deeply personal and important to McGrath, who was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease at the age of 14 and then was diagnosed with brain cancer at 18, and uses them to not only educate himself about the world, but to raise money and awareness for the causes closest to his heart.
Though he’s been cancer-free for decades, McGrath never wastes an opportunity to spread awareness and on these kinds of trips he got in touch with area bars and restaurants to ask to perform, either a few songs or a comedy routine, to raise money for a local cancer charity. A handful of pubs let him, and he said he had a lot of fun getting to sing, play guitar, and do a self-deprecating stand-up routine for the Irish locals.
“What made both trips great were the people I met. It wasn’t the castles, it wasn’t the cool scenery. Those were great. But [the people] really made the story amazing and unbelievable and something that I’ll hold on to for the rest of my life,” he said.
This time around Ireland, McGrath wanted to travel a comparable distance without repeating his 2023 trip. He decided to take a winding route from Shannon, a town in County Clare, Ireland, all the way to Derry, a city in Northern Ireland, that was partially inspired by his love for the show “Derry Girls.”
His route first took him to Quin, a village about 10 miles outside of Shannon, where he played a local pub and raised money for Irish Cancer Society. The next day he walked to Tubber, another small village that McGrath described as having “one of everything,” which he said made it easy for him to decide where he’d be staying and which locals he’d be talking to. From there, he met a kindhearted person who drove him to Boston, Ireland, so McGrath could take a photo with the village sign on July 4.
McGrath visited the Gort Cancer Support Center in the town of Gort, where he connected with the patients receiving care at the facility and shared his own stories of cancer survival. Later that night he found himself unexpectedly performing at a local bar alongside Irish musicians.
He hopped around the country for the next few days, aiming to take walks lasting between three and five hours each day to get from one location to another. Eventually, he landed in the town of Tuam on July 10, where he did an hour of songs and jokes and raised hundreds of dollars for the Tuam Cancer Center.
Generosity was a common theme throughout McGrath’s journey, as the Westborough native often found himself in conversation with interesting locals who were equally as invested in his walking tour as McGrath was in their culture, and many offered to help him see as much of the country as possible. One instance McGrath recalled came on July 14 when he was walking to the town of Ballymote in the pouring rain, trying to hitchhike a ride from passersby — “it will be the right car at the right time,” he kept telling himself. Eventually, an Australian family of four picked him up and brought him into town.
In the last week of his walking tour, McGrath made it all over: Sligo, Cliffony, Ballyshannon, Donegal, Ballybofey, Letterkenny, and Carrigans, before finally reaching Derry on July 22. Derry, he said, was easily his favorite stop of the trip and was where he spent time going through the area’s history and pop culture memorabilia. Following Derry, McGrath spent a few days traveling through Northern Ireland and the Isle of Man, learning about the history of the regions and adding to his step count.
Much like his first trip, he plans to write about his travels and the people he met along the way.
“Pretty much every night or every other night I filled a journal,” McGrath said. “I’m in my second journal now.”
Beyond his advocacy work, the trip allowed McGrath to explore his heritage and connect with his culture.
“I feel more comfortable in Ireland than I do in the United States and it’s not even close,” he said. “There’s no question — every fiber of my being feels better in that place.”
When he landed back in Westborough in early August, McGrath was only home for a few hours before he departed on a ten-hour road trip to Prince Edward Island in Canada to visit family. Traveling never tires him, and when people ask how he’s doing, he always answers honestly.
“I’m having the time of my life… I’m literally living the dream when I’m doing these trips,” he said.
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