This is the view over Lough Corrib from our cottage. We spent a lovely two weeks there. The cottage had a sunroom with a large picture window and we often sat watching the light change on the lough. It was also the only place in the cottage that had an internet signal. There was no phone reception at all. But that didn’t seem to matter. We sat and read, went for walks and bike rides, and recharged our batteries. The nearest village was Clonbur, one mile away, which had a good shop, a bakery and three pubs, two of which served food. The cottage was whitewashed and sat amongst fuchsia bushes and fruit trees. It had been the home of the grandfather of the current owner, who had improved and extended it. We ended up being one of the last holiday lets, as he had recently retired and was moving in there next month.
The surrounding area marks the border between counties Galway and Mayo. It’s called Joyce’s Country, after the Anglo-Norman landowner, and consists of Lough Mask, the Partry Mountains and the densely wooded margins of Lough Corrib. Nearby is Cong, famous for the Augustinian Abbey with its fishing house built on the river, and for the country seat of the Guinness family, which has now become a very posh hotel. But 1000 Euro per person per night does not buy you exclusivity, for the grounds of Ashford Castle contain a number of rights of way and thus are open to the public. We walked there through ancient woodland beside the lough and had lunch in the tea room.
Despite having pulled an abdominal muscle a week or so before our trip, I still managed some good bike rides. There were plenty of quiet back roads to explore around the shores of Lough Mask and across the stone-walled farmlands of South Mayo to the old market town of Ballinrobe. T did plenty of writing. I focused on reading. I’d brought a selection of crime novels with me. I really enjoyed ‘Christine Falls’ by John Banville, the first of his Quirke novels, and ‘The Searcher’ by Tana French, a novel with a frontier feel, set in the West of Ireland. I also enjoyed ‘I Know What I Saw’ by Imran Mahmoud, a novel with PTSD and memory loss at its core, but was jolted by the final twist which left me feeling somewhat cheated. The good thing is that they all gave me inspiration for my next redraft of my crime novel, which is what I should now be getting down to after the holiday.
