The End of the Wild Atlantic Way

Monday to Wednesday, June 8 to 10

On Monday, we headed north again, this time to North Donegal, our last hurrah on our Wild Atlantic Way trek.

We only had to drive about an hour and a half north, so we wanted to take in some of the sights we planned to visit in this area on this transition day.  One place on our must-see list was the highly recommended Glebe Gallery and the Derek Hill art collection located in his former home, next door.  We drove to Letterkenny and then headed west to Churchill, where it's located.  I don't want to say much about about the current exhibit at the Glebe, but it is the work of an artist that collects dead crow wings and makes art pieces from them.

The real reason for this stop was to see Derek Hill's house and art collection.  He was a respected artist himself, but he also collected art.  I'm talking multiple Picassos, and Braque, Renoir, Bonnard, and many others I don't know.  After living in this home 50 years, he left it intact (including the Glebe and extensive grounds) to Ireland.  It was quite interesting to visit.  Our tour guide knew Mr. Hill well and had heard him talk about his artwork and his home, and she clearly adored him.  It made the tour very different from other house tours.

We drove on over a mountain pass and down into Dunlewy.

And then we headed further north toward Dunfanaghy and a section of our Atlantic drive.  Can't stay away too long, you know.  (Our B&B hosts in Donegal Town had given us a helpful brochure/map of donegal with 6 different recommended loop drives.  It really made it easier to see where we could pick up a section of a loop that made sense given where we were and how late in the day it was getting.)

This is the view at Portnablagh, just beyond Dunfanaghy.

On Tuesday, our primary focus was to visit Glenveagh National Park, a highlight of any visit to North Donegal.

We debated visiting the castle that is part of the park.  It was really an extravagant private home, and had quite a string of American owners.  Celebrities and aristocrats (American and otherwise) were frequent guests.  There was nothing historically significant about it, and we're a bit house'd out.  The things we'd read about it, however, made us decide to do it.  It's quite a place and in a spectacular setting along the lake with views in both directions.  After the fact, we were glad we'd gone ahead and included the castle tour.

The BBC was there, taping a music special.  Because of that, a couple of the rooms were closed to us.  We did get to see a crew using a drone to get some aerial shots of the lake.  That was kind of fun to see.

The lands were purchased by Ireland in 1975 for the National Park.  In 1981, the last American owner--the curator from the Philadelphia Museum of Art--gave the castle and gardens to Ireland as well.

After touring the castle and walking through the extensive gardens--the walled garden, the Swiss garden, the Tuscan garden, etc.--we began a scenic drive around two peninsulas.

First up was what sounded like--and looked on the map like--an easy loop around the Rossguill Peninsula.  It turned into one of those drives we should have come to expect, but don't seem to be very good at avoiding.  The road narrowed and narrowed.  We kept praying we wouldn't encounter any other vehicles.  It climbed; it twisted.  And it was so beautiful.  There were only a couple places to stop, but it was scenic indeed.

At the end of Rossguill, looking west.  I can't believe what the people who live here must go through every time they have to come or go.  The last thing we were expecting out here was a cluster of houses.

A short distance later, looking east.

A snippet of a view to Tra na Rossan beach.  Very pretty setting; lovely beach.

Then we took a bridge onto the Northwestern corner of the Fanad Peninsula.  Our inn was on the eastern shore of the peninsula, looking out to Lough Swilly, so this was a logical and convenient extension.  There was a point at which that logic came into question, but it all worked out.

Below is Fanad Head, the northernmost point.  Next landfall is Scotland.

This, too, was a lovely though challenging drive.  In this case, we actually got rather lost, or thought we were.  We couldn't believe that the road the sign indicated we should turn down could possibly be right and kept looking.  After turning around twice, we finally headed down this track that looked like a paved path.  Turned out that was the road alright. 

View to Dunaff Head on the Inishowen Peninsula, across Lough Swilly (a sea lough and referred to as a fjord).

And another view across Lough Swilly.

On Wednesday, we decided we'd had enough of these bracing drives on goat tracks and gave ourselves a much milder day.  We spent some time in Ramelton, a small town just down the shore of Lough Swilly from where we were staying.

Then we drove along Mulroy Bay, which is between Rossguill and Fanad.  Since we had crossed onto Fanad by bridge the day before, we'd missed this pretty bay, which was a route recommended by our inn.

View to Lough Swilly and Inishowen from the crest of Fanad Peninsula.

One treat in Donegal was that we saw almost no tour buses.  It wasn't like there were no tourists, but they were in short supply in comparison to anywhere else we've been on this trip.

Something that really surprised us about North Donegal was that the land was much gentler than we'd expected.  And it was much more populated.  We had expected this off-the-beaten-track area to be more harsh and barren.  It turned out it wasn't all that off the beaten track.  We certainly hadn't expected holiday homes in places where there just shouldn't have been houses at all.  There were fewer rock walls and more pastureland.  The hills were less dramatic.  There were lots of bustling towns.  Nothing about it said wilderness and harshness.

But, then, Ireland is not what we expected either.  We knew there had been a boom and a bust.  We had heard of new roads and lots of building.  And we saw all that.  The country is much more prosperous than what we saw in 1987.  There are good and bad things that have come with this prosperity.  To a person, those Irish people with whom we have had conversations will refer to it that way--the good and the bad.  But this country that is so relatively newly independent has its past of poverty and human suffering indelibly etched on its psyche.  In Yeats' poem, Easter 1916, he refers to "a terrible beauty" and that seems a descriptor that is still appropriate.

We are sad to leave the Wild Atlantic Way.  It has been breathtaking, in multiple senses of that expression.  (I have decided the "Wild" part refers to the roads, not the Atlantic.  No regrets, though.) The stunning views.  The fresh air.  The beauty of this place.  We came to Ireland with quaint and charming in our heads and, instead, found a land filled with vast and beautiful landscapes.  It's  painful to have to leave them in our rear view mirror.  We will never think of Ireland in the same way, that's for sure.

With all that grandeur tucked into our memories, it's time to head back south and wind down our touring.  We head now for the Midlands and then home before we know it.

Some Thoughts on Irish Food

[Note: I have included a few pictures.  It is not exactly representative of what we've been eating, in that I usually only took pictures if something struck me as particularly attractive.]

When we visited Ireland and Scotland in 1987, it was long before the so-called food revolution.  There wasn't a lot memorable about the food.  For years, we've quipped that every dinner was either lamb or salmon, salmon or lamb.  The vegetable offering was always long-cooked green beans or peas.  Specifically in Ireland, we remember lots of brown bread.

We'd heard a lot about a food revolution in Ireland.  More artisan bakers and cheese makers, etc., and more thought given to the vegetable and fruit bounty in this mild climate.  

So we expected much better food.  By and large, that has been true.  The expected foods, perhaps, but prepared in more modern ways.  As in the States, there are more restaurants and more people eating out.  More sidewalk cafes.  And more fast-food places.

But some things haven't changed all that much.

There's still a lot of lamb on the menus.  But, then, if you could see the innumerable sheep covering the landscape, that should be no surprise.  The surprise would be that it is still overcooked.  We've had lamb a few times.  And, no matter how much you assure your server that you really, really want the meat to be very pink, they just can't seem to bring themselves to cook it that way.  (Our lone exception was the perfectly prepared lamb at Coopershill, our Co. Sligo country house stay.)

Brown bread is ubiquitous.  Every breakfast.  Most dinners. As an option for sandwiches. With your bowl of seafood chowder.  

Eggs.  Wonderful, fresh eggs.  From the hens just outside or from the neighboring farm.  Those lovely, deep golden yolks.  We have eaten more eggs than we usually would, but it has been very hard to resist that freshness.

An "Irish" is available for breakfast everywhere, everyday.  Eggs, rashers of fabulous meaty bacon, sausages, broiled tomato, black and white pudding.  Sometimes with sautéed mushrooms; sometimes with baked beans.  Not unusual to have an option for some fresh fish that just came into the local harbor.   Porridge is always available, and we've really enjoyed it. 

I've had a "full Irish" twice, just because.  Occasionally it's served with farls, a potato-flour combination that is somewhere between mashed potato cakes and bread.   Our usual breakfast has been one soft-poached egg with toast.  It seems to confuse our servers that we want only one egg and that we don't want bacon and sausages.  The bacon really is lovely, so, trust me, we've certainly had some.  (Here, a rare two-egg day.)

But some things are different, too:

The breads are now fabulous, almost everywhere.  We have had some of the most divine, moist brown breads.  We have vowed to figure out how to make our own.  But there have also been some wonderful white soda breads that were so subtle and moist.  We had one very unusual carrageen moss (i.e., seaweed) soda bread that was really interesting and good.  And, tonight, we had our first Guiness bread, which was a real stunner.

Carrageen moss bread.

Every lodging seems to make its own muesli, and many make their own jams.  Some make their own yoghurt, and a couple places we stayed even made their own honey.

Rhubarb has been very much in evidence--at breakfast and in desserts.  That's probably a function of the time of year we're here, but it has made me happy.  One of the things I love is fresh stewed or poached rhubarb with my morning yogurt.  And 29 days into our trip, I can report that I have been able to have rhubarb all but 6 mornings so far.  Sometimes from the garden outside.

The beer options have certainly expanded.  Besides the usuals like Guiness and Smithwick's (and Carlsberg for some reason), which are on tap everywhere, there has been a craft beer revolution in Ireland.  Many establishments will have some local brew on tap or, if not on tap, in bottles.  We have tried a handful of the local craft brews, and they have been very tasty.

Every dinner is served with "3 veg."  You might get asparagus on your plate with your entree, but your server will show up shortly with a dish of 3 veg--always potatoes, usually carrots, and some other, such as green beans (but fresh and well prepared).  Potatoes are a ubiquitous item.  Even if your entree includes a little serving of potato gratin, you'll be offered some steamed or roasted potatoes.  Chips are pretty much everywhere, too.  They are nicely prepared, however.  Never soggy.

One thing that has really hit us is the incredible seafood.  We have been in coastal areas throughout our trip.  And every area we've visited really prides itself on offering the local seafood.  The couple times we dined somewhere that didn't mention where their seafood was from, we noticed it right away.

They might be touting their Dublin Bay prawns or Dingle Bay prawns.  Bantry mussels or Killary mussels or Mulroy Bay mussels.  Greencastle-landed fish.  Lobster.  Each seafood offered will be local and named by the place it's caught or harvested.  

We have eaten so much (wonderful) white fish--sea bream, plaice, hake, haddock, cod, brill, turbot, monkfish.  Some we'd never heard of.  All have been fresh and very tasty.  The winner of the Dinan White Fish Taste and Texture contest: (drumroll) John Dory.  Great fish.  

Smoked salmon (gravlax) is on virtually every menu--breakfast, lunch, or dinner.

The mussels have been really good, too.  Most that we've had have been very, very small.  The shrimp have been wonderful--bigger than what we call bay shrimp in Oregon, but smaller than what we call prawns.  Somewhere between the two in texture, too.  (I love shrimp, so this has made me a very happy camper.) We've also had some really good scallops.  We had Donegal scallops for dinner the other night.  They're small and very flavorful, a bit firm in texture.  Also have seen lots of crab.  A number of places were offering dinners of crab claws, which looked more like stone crabs than our Dungeness crab.

Prawn salad.

Crab salad with apple.

As I've mentioned before, seafood chowder is offered everywhere.  Most cafes or pubs will offer it for lunch.  Restaurants will offer it as a first course at dinner.  It will usually have two to four types of white fish and maybe some shellfish, if it's locally harvested wherever you're eating.  

One thing we've gotten a kick out of seeing:  Every little town seems to have a Chinese Take-Away.  We'll be driving in some far-flung region and drive through a hamlet with only a few businesses, and there will be the Chinese Take-Away.  Sometimes, it's Chinese and European Take-Away.  We're not sure what the European take-away is, but we've seen it quite a lot.  Always paired with something else, whether Chinese or Indian.

I've drunk more tea in the last month than in the last 10 years I think.  Always with breakfast.  Sometimes in the afternoon.  One nice touch has been that hotels/inns frequently offer to serve you tea (and probably a biscuit) when you arrive.  A rather civilized way to settle in and shake off the road dust.

We've noticed that there is apparently a national cuisine, rather than a series of regional cuisines, such as we might see in France.  So there is nothing different about the food in Donegal, except that we see different place names for the source of the fish, or we might have different fish available.  Some places we see shellfish; other places, not.  

We have had some lovely meals and some very simple meals--almost all of it with super-fresh, super-local products.  One take-away for us is that we may have to learn to make some of that chewy dark brown bread.

Gateway to the Northwest

Saturday and Sunday, June 6 and 7

On Saturday, we headed further north.  The winds had abated some, but were still very blustery.  Combined with the very cool temperatures, it was another brisk day.  Layers have been key.

There is a thin strip of the Republic of Ireland, just north of Sligo, that scoots past Northern Ireland and on north to Co. Donegal, and it's called the Gateway to the Northwest.  I've never had that image in my head.  I thought of Donegal and NI (as it's known here, as opposed to ROI for the Republic) side by side.  In actuality, Co. Donegal lies north of about half of NI.  Many of the road signs mention cities in NI without any distinction.  In fact, we were looking for a highway sign to Donegal Town and Letterkenny, but all the signs pointed to either Enniskillen or Derry, both in NI.  We just needed to know which city lay beyond the one we were aiming for.  Seems a tad unusual in any case, but even more so given the past and the fact that they are two separate countries.

We made a brief stop in Bundoran, which calls itself Ireland's premier seacoast resort.  It was a rather sad stop.  This town must be one of the premier victims of the crash of the Celtic Tiger economy.  Broken windows, empty shops, very gritty and dreary.  One of the better looking establishments was the bookmaker.  There is also a relatively thriving water park--right on the seashore--and it is a surfing destination.  There were a few hotels, but very little in the way of eating establishments or shops.  It was a depressing place to be, not enhanced by the cold winds.  Our impression is that this is a seaside town mostly for North Irelanders.  NI has no western Atlantic coastline, and the border is only about 4 miles from the town.  Many of the license plates we saw were from NI.

With that less-than-encouraging introduction to Co. Donegal, we headed on to Donegal Town.  After checking into our quirky B&B, we went to explore the town.  (I say "quirky" as a nod to our hostess' strange attraction to gargoyles of every size and type, inside and out.  But its view, sitting on a hillside above a quiet inlet on Donegal Bay, would be hard to beat. The quality of the bed we won't discuss in polite society.)

The view from our B&B room, just before 10pm.  Love the long, long days here in the north and so close to the solstice.

Donegal Town is a thriving, bustling place, though fairly gritty itself.  There were tour buses dropping off people at hotels, and a wedding celebration was happening at one hotel.  People seemed to be everywhere.  On this busy Saturday night, we were lucky to snag a parking place in a "pay and display" lot on the pier at the edge of town and walked from end to end, along the river, and dropped into a good-sized shop in the space of 30-40 minutes, so it's pretty compact.  It has a castle right downtown, just a block off The Diamond--Donegal Town's central square--which adds a nice touch.

We had just 1 day for sightseeing in this southern Donegal region, and we headed out relatively early on Sunday morning.  From the onset, it was an exciting day: the wind had finally stopped, and there was sunshine!  At no point in the day did we don a jacket.

We drove out to the far end of the peninsula to visit Glencolmcille and its Folk Life Village.  It has cottages representing the 1700's, about 1850, and the early 20th century.  There was also a fisherman's cottage, a shop/pub, and a schoolhouse.  It was quite well done and gave a feel for how life, here in this remote spot that calls itself "the end of beyond," changed over time.  Glencolmcille didn't get electricity until 1953, which is so hard to imagine.  A beautiful spot, but a rugged life I suspect.

We got a chance to have a nice long conversation with the manager of the village.  One of life's funny synchronicities: she had visited Portland (and Seattle and Victoria) to talk about weaving with some weaving and fiber arts guilds.

After we left Glencolmcille, we climbed up over the Glengesh Pass and came down into the pretty valley where Ardara is located.

Everything in this southern part of Co. Donegal is about wool--tweeds, sweaters, clothing made from the famous Donegal wools.  We visited  one of the major purveyors in Donegal Town and a couple in Ardara, a tweed hot spot about 45 minutes out in the hills.  Lots of temptations, mostly left behind.  It was fun to see some of the looms, and we had a nice conversation with a man working a loom, with his 2-year old playing with bobbins of wool at his feet.

We drove north to see Portnoo and the beautiful strand at Narin, with breakers hitting the beach from two sides.

On our way back to town, we stopped to admire the huge fishing boats in the very industrious Killybegs, "Ireland's Premier Fishing Port." 

A brief visit to this area, but we're glad to add this chapter to our Wild Atlantic Way journey.

Wild Atlantic Way: Co. Mayo

Tuesday to Friday, June 2 - 5

It's hard to believe, but it just keeps getting better.  Co. Mayo seems to have a very high concentration of stunning landscapes for its size.  And we have made a pretty good run at seeing it.

When some blue skies appeared Wednesday, we knew we had better take our best shot--in other words, drive what we expected to be the most scenic route in this area.  That meant Achill Island.  We had read about it in our Fodor Guide, in the Frommer's Ireland Driving Tours book, on the Karen Brown website, and on a short list of recommended drives at our hotel.  

We drove north to Newport then Mulranny and then out to the Corran Peninsula.  We immediately turned onto the Atlantic Drive (which is, of course, part of the Wild Atlantic Way).  It starts gently, but then opens out to lovely views across Clew Bay to Clare Island, the largest of Mayo's islands.  We climbed to a couple high vantage points before following the peninsula shoreline up Achill Sound.  

One thing that blew us away was the profusion of wild rhodies.  We have been seeing them all over Ireland, but they were everywhere we looked in this area. We drove through sections where the roadway was surrounded on both sides by walls of blooming rhodies.  In other places, there were hills above us or fields below us, again filled with purple blooms.  We once were lucky to be in Scotland in heather season, but I think being in Ireland during wild rhododendron season beats that.

After taking the bridge onto Achill Island, we once again immediately turned off onto another stretch of the Atlantic Drive.  We drove down the island's Sound shoreline then rounded the bend of the island to be confronted with a sweeping view of crashing surf and the Atlantic coastline all the way out to Achill Head.  Truly wild and beautiful.  And we were feeling so lucky to get to see it on a bright, sunny day.

While the road was bracing at times, we fared very well.  For one thing, there were only a handful of folks sharing this stunning shoreline with us.  We saw only two tour buses all day, and, blessedly, they were going the same direction we were.

We took a break in Knockmore, where the road turns inland and climbs into the hills.  We stopped at Mickey's Bar (how wonderfully Irish does that sound?) for what has become our Irish standard--a bowl of seafood chowder with brown bread.

We took the road further west toward Achill Head, ending at Keel with its long strand under towering cliffs.  We saw a large surfing school testing the waves, a couple of horseback riders, and one very intrepid sunbather.  Trust me, anyone brave enough to wear a bikini in these temperatures and this wind is someone very serious about getting a tan!

We took a short loop drive on the west end of the island then made our way back to Mulranny.  We turned north and drove through some pretty countryside and then south along a lake to return to Westport, feeling we'd taken good advantage of this break in the weather.

Thursday threw us a bit of a curve.  We were enveloped in such a fine mist, we might as well have been in a fog bank.  So we gave ourselves a morning off.  But when the skies lifted a bit in early afternoon, we took off on what we thought would be the second most scenic route, a loop through the Murrisk Peninsula.  

We started off with a lunch stop in the town of Murrisk, which is the starting point for the ascent of Croagh Patrick.  The Tavern Bar and Restaurant is written up everywhere.  For such a simple place, it has won quite a few accolades for the quality of its food.  We had fish and chips made from Clew Bay cod, Clew Bay being right outside the door.  A lovely, flaky piece of fish.  It has forever changed my notion of what cod fish and chips can be.  I also knew this was a likely place to find the craft beer that is made in a neighboring community, also at the foot of Croagh Patrick, Ireland's sacred mountain.  Mecsan is the brewing company, and Westporter Stout was the beer I was seeking.  It is a Belgian style, bottle conditioned, and very good.  Worth the stop on its own.

Setting off on our planned trek, we expected an attractive drive in the hills.  What we didn't expect was the haunting beauty of the Doo Lough Pass.  The pass runs between the Mweelrea Mountains to the west and the Sheeffry Hills to the east.  We only passed a couple cars the whole time.  To have this awesome landscape all to ourselves was almost otherworldly.  Just us and a few sheep.

This pass is the site of one of the saddest stories from the Great Famine in 1849.  Six hundred starving people walked through this pass to their landowner's home in Delphi Lodge, to the south of the lake.  They were denied food and started back north, but 200 of them died along the road.  So I use the term "haunting" purposely.

We drove miles along Doo Lough after descending from the pass and came to Delphi, which is a revered angling area.  We saw ample evidence of fishermen along the Owengarr River.  Soon, we were driving along the north shore of the Killary fjord before bumping into Aasleagh Falls and then looping back north to Westport.  A lovely loop drive, much more spectacular than we'd even dreamed.

Friday was our day to explore the pretty little Georgian town of Westport.  The rain was holding off most of the time, but the wind was vigorous.  We walked every street and visited a few shops.  We walked the length of The Mall, two tree-lined streets that flank the Carrowbeg River that runs through town.  Arched bridges, Georgian houses, a very bustling downtown.  The town "square" is called the Octagon, a rather "fun" traffic spot (ask Jerry).

A view to Croagh Patrick, a pilgrimage site and Ireland's sacred mountain, with Westport below.

Westport:

Busy Bridge Street, with the clock tower at the end:

Georgian houses along the South Mall:

The Octagon:

By afternoon, the wind was rattling windows.  Still mostly sunny, but a force to be reckoned with, I'm telling you.  By bedtime, when I am completing this, the wind is still blowing hard.  Very interesting sound effects and good for making us glad to be inside.

This is the end of our time in Mayo.  Tomorrow we head north to Donegal and more Wild Atlantic Way opportunities.

A Slice of Country Life, Georgian-Style

Our 3 nights in the Sligo area were spent in a Georgian country house.

When we travel, we have a penchant for staying in relatively small inns--not too small, not too big.  When we, just a couple months ago, discovered that we might have some trouble staying where we hoped to stay, we went on a spate of booking places.  On any trip, we will usually have a mix of reserved places and open days to allow for some flexibility.  But we learned of a big bank holiday in the middle of our trip (June 1) and decided we'd better make sure we had a room for the nights around it.  Then we realized that our plan of staying 3 or 4 nights at each stop meant we would be bumping into weekends at every stop.  And when we tried to make a few bookings, we had mixed success.  So we buckled down and found bookings for the entire trip.  As I say, it was a late sprint.

It also means we spent a short period of time looking at so many guidebooks and websites that our heads were spinning.  And, while we ended up happy with our choices and options, some of the details were lost along the way.  We know if we're staying in a B&B or a hotel, but we haven't been been thinking much about the details of our bookings since we made them.

Our theme for lodgings on this trip has been country houses.  Not really planned that way, but they're what spoke to us as we made our rash of bookings apparently.  Country houses are outside the more touristed towns, quieter, smaller.  A couple of the places we've stayed were country houses that have grown into fairly large inns.  A couple others are still country houses that have grown on a more modest scale.

And then there was Coopershill, our home in Co. Sligo.  

We obviously missed some fine points when we booked this lovely place.  Not a problem; we just got a bit of a surprise.  We drove 1 mile through the estate as we approached the house, over an old arched stone bridge, then past a working farm, crumbling old stone buildings, a herd of sheep, and a herd of deer (who aren't in any danger at this time of year, but show up on the dinner menu in the fall, we hear).  When we arrived at the house, we still weren't sure we were in the right place, but indeed we were.

Simon came out to greet us. He showed us the drawing room, where we could hang out (if you can use such a term in a Georgian country house) and have a cocktail before dinner.  And the dining room, where we had our own perfect corner table for breakfast each morning and dinner each evening (if we wished).

Then he took us up to our bedroom.  This is truly a country home--which happens to have 8 bedrooms for guests.  After Simon left us to unpack in our room, we realized we hadn't gotten a key.  That was one of our first clues that this was to be a completely different experience.  None of the rooms were locked.  After all, we were all simply guests in Simon and Christina's home.

The original Coopers married into the O'Hara family.  Though this is an O'Hara home, they retained the Cooper name for the estate.  Simon O'Hara is the eighth generation of family in this home.  (His aunts live in the attached renovated coach house, and his parents are just down the road.)  Simon and his wife, Christina, are the inhabitants and the managers of Coopershill.

Initially, we wondered what we had gotten ourselves into.  We are certainly not from landed gentry, and we weren't sure we were going to feel comfortable in this genteel setting.  But we finally decided to go with the flow.  As it turned out, there was quite a mix in the clientele--a couple more posh sorts, but mostly folks like us.  

We met a father and son from Philadelphia and Florida, respectively, who had just flown in for a week of golf, split between Sligo and the southwest of Ireland.  We met a young Irish journalist who was doing a piece on outdoor activities in Sligo for the Aer Lingus magazine.  He had been riding a horse on the beach and would the next day try his hand at paddle boarding.  He had just arrived after 2 weeks in San Francisco, where he was working on a book, and a trip to Mendocino, where he was doing another piece for Aer Lingus.  (The nonstop Aer Lingus flight from San Francisco to Dublin, which we flew over here, is quite new.)

We had a couple very nice conversations with Christina, who is in charge of the kitchen.  We asked her one morning if she made the brown bread as well as everything else.  She told us she'd done the 12-week course at Ballymaloe Cookery School (!), but that she had done poorly on her bread making proficiency test.  For the last 8 years, she has been making the bread and rolls (which she referred to as her penance for doing so poorly on this subject), but she now has someone who makes the bread.  We could tell she was pretty excited about this.  We shared our little Ballymaloe story and assured her that she had prepared some of the best food we've had in Ireland, which is true.  Bless her tired soul, Christina makes breakfast and dinner (with staff help, but still...), and she also packed our picnic lunches for us.  

Simon handles the business end of things, acts as the greeter, brings in the tea things in the afternoon, serves cocktails, and ushers us into the dining room when they're ready for us.  They also have a very young son (3 years old or so) and a very active dog.  I don't know if there is such a thing as down time in their life except in the off season.

Christina said that many think they're crazy to do what they're doing.  But, she said, this house was built to entertain, so it's only right to have it filled with guests.

We ended up loving our stay at Coopershill.  Not because it's a place we could or would ever live, but because it was a completely different experience than any other we've ever had.  We learned to enjoy this lovely old home filled with antiques and books and artwork and eight generations of love and care. It was our little slice of Georgian country life.