- Connemara
- (15)
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Ireland
A delightful timepiece of gracious living plonked in the wilds of Connemara, the pink-washed country house has mature gardens with trails overlooking Bearnaderg Bay and the small mountains, the Twelve Pins of Connemara.
We received a warm wlecome, late at night, with soup and sandwiches brought up to our toasty room by a lovely old lady we wanted to adopt as our grandmother. This set the tone for our weekend...warm, friendly, chatty and not at all stuffy.
Tel: +95 41101
www.rosleague.com
As a true Blue Jackeen (native of Dublin) I love Dublin, but the one thing I always tell visitors (the term "tourist" is very rarely used in Ireland) is by all means enjoy a day and maybe one night in Dublin, have a pint or two in one of the last few remaining decent tradtional pubs (Kehoes, Toners, Dohney & Nesbitts etc) but after that get out of Dublin and head west. Nothing will prepare you for Connemara. The spectacular scenery, the friendly locals, the great pubs and traditional music, fantastic beaches and just a general feeling of being away from it all out on the farthest tip of Western Europe you can get to.
From Galway head for Clifden but make sure to take the road through the Inagh Valley. Spectacular 360 degree walled valley with the beautiful Lake Inagh running through it.
If you have time, take a trip out to Inisboffin Island for a day, wild and unspoilt with two bars and about 80 local residents and a former hideout of the 16th century great Irish Pirate Queen herself Grace O'Malley.
It’s not signposted and its existence is denied by the locals, but this impossibly large beach is the most beautiful strand in Ireland and no-one else seems to know about it. The water is warm and the sand hot, while cattle graze the fringe of grass on the sand dunes. A little graveyard sits uneasily on the weather-worn shore.
The town of Clifden, famous for the first Trans-Atlantic flight having landed there, is a thriving cosmopolitan town with new apartments being built and the pubs and restaurants full.
The old railway station has been carefully incorporated into apartment blocks next to the station hotel. Remnants of the old platform have been kept as part of the walkway, and the old lines, sleepers and signal switches are embedded into the pedestrian area. The locomotive shed and stationmaster’s house are part of the development and even the new block of shops has been sensitively dealt with in the design process. The whole effect works well with vernacular references to the railway, which played a significant part in Clifden’s development.
The area has walks for all abilities in the Connemara National Park.
Going to Clifden is worth it, not only because of the town, but the actual journey is so spectacular with the barren rock landscape surrounded by drowned peat hags fringed with reeds.
John Joe, the friendly grocer tells us that lots of famous people have houses round Louisburgh and Westport as retreats from the hurly-burly of high pressure life. Did we not see Mick Hucknal from Simply Red there in front of us at the check-out? A grand lad (with his spending power, I bet he is a grand lad). And Miles Kinston from the Irish Times? And yer man who owns Ryan Air? And Madonna? And … The list goes on.
We feel rather poor as we load the supplies into the dusty Toyota that sits shyly among the brand new four-by-fours, the shiny Mercs, the sleek BMWs. These belong, not to the rich and famous, but to the shopkeepers.
John Joe waxes lyrical and looks prosperous, but pleads poverty claiming that it is the farmers with their grants and subsidies and tax exemptions who are the nouveau riche. To tell the truth, there’s no sign of poverty, which is good to see in a land so long barren.
Most of the wells and springs in Ireland that were venerated by the Celts, were taken over by the Church and became Holy Wells. One such is St. Kieran’s, just outside the village of Carna. It’s a sad wet place, ferns dripping and brambles ready to snag the unwary. But up here is a cross to St. Kieran. He is supposed to have stayed here on his way to the Aran Islands to convert the heathen. The water from his well is supposed to cure problems with the sight.
There are two Portakabins as ticket offices at the harbour, each owned by a different family, each vying for your custom and each boat leaving at the same time. Only fifteen minutes sailing to the island. Worth going to though, for walking and the most magnificent of views as there isn’t too much to see apart from a shop, a tiny hotel and a public toilet.
Croagh Patrick looms over the surrounding land, brooding and massive with its memory of the saint who prayed here for forty days and nights in 441A.D. Every year on the last Sunday of July around 60,000 people struggle on a pilgrimage to the summit.
The Killary, as it’s known to the locals is the only fjord in Ireland and was gouged out of the rock by the glaciers of the last ice-age. The town of Leenane is close by, where the film The Field was made, and I suspect they are still living on the merits of it.
The Connemara Princess, a state of the art catamaran will take you on a most enchanting ninety-minute tour of this fjord, complete with commentary, video and very pleasant food and drink. Along the way, sheer cliffs drop to unimaginable depths while sheep cling impossibly to the precipice. Terns plunge into the slate grey surface of the fjord, to surface, most times triumphantly, with fish in their beaks.
On the far shore, the remains of lazy beds can be seen from famine times, where potatoes were grown, their nutrition gained by the back-breaking labour of trailing seaweed from the shoreline up onto the slopes. Until a tax was levied on it. Lazy beds? A misnomer if ever there was one.
Apparently during the last war, there was a great storm off this coast and in order to take shelter, two submarines patrolling the Atlantic, put into the Killary. The only problem was that one was British and one was German. And Eire was neutral. In order to avoid what could have been an international incident, the Government of the Republic ignored them, the submarines ignored each other, and the crews met down the pub for the craic during the three days it took for the storm to blow over! Apparently there was a continuous stream of Arthur Guinness’s dray horses delivering from Clifden. Now that’s what’s called a peace process!
Only problem was afterwards when the storm was over, and they went out into the Atlantic, instead of sinking pints they started sinking each other.
One of the best things about staying somewhere in Ireland is the welcome. We were greeted at our most delightful bungalow in Kilkieran by the McDonagh family, who lived next door, (00353-95-33-476 if you’re thinking of going). Mrs. McD. had her own freshly baked bread for us with tea served in an immaculate tea set.
Everything was better than good, the turf fire, the rooms, the Jacuzzi, the bed linen, the towels, the view….
It was all a delight, especially the view. The garden was a half-acre of rough sea grass framed by the characteristic dry stone walls of Connemara, and beyond, a view to die for. The sea stretched out flat to the islands where huge mackerel skies hung over the landscape while sun-warmed salt-laden air that tingled the lips, kissed the honeysuckle growing in the crevices of the lichen covered walls.
Not far round the coast is the tiny village of Carna where a winding road that gets ever narrower suddenly discloses a silver white strand with smooth rocks and warm rock pools. Sit here and listen to the rhythm of the ocean. Waves that have been piled up from Greenland and tamed down by the islands, trickle up the sand as gentle ripples that soothe the feet with their cool massage.
Go out to the Aran Islands either by boat or plane. On the edge of Europe, they are places to touch the past. Eat at, “The Aran Fisherman,” on Inis Mor and afterwards watch a spectacular show of hard shoe dancing and haunting airs in the village hall taken from the rich traditions of Connemara and Arainn.
Further out past Louisburgh is Roonah Quay where the ferry leaves for Clare Island. Here on the edge of the island is the gloomy remains of the castle of Grainne Uaile the famous pirate queen who was so revered that she was received at the court of Queen Elizabeth l.
Every summer treasure seekers come to the west to dive and look for Spanish Doubloons and Pieces of Eight, but apart from the treasure of the Girona which foundered off Port na Spania on the North Coast a month later in the same year, not much has been found. With the underwater currents grinding rocks and timber, all traces of vessels would be long gone.
Unable to make headway against the wind, on 20 September 1588, three Armada ships had anchored half a league from Connemara’s shore. After five days at anchor, Captain Francisco de Cuellar related afterwards: 'There sprang up so great a storm on our beam, with a sea up to the heavens, so that the cables could not hold...we were driven ashore... Such a thing was never seen; for within the space of an hour two ships were broken to pieces, so that there did not escape three hundred men, and more than one thousand were drowned.'
It was a bad coast then and even today with unpredictable swirling currents and eddies, boats keep well out from the shore.
Is this your business?Search Been there
