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.
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