FOOD + FAMILY
RECIPES for HAPPY LIVING
2016
FOREVER & ALWAYS
TYING the KNOT IN CONNEMARA
AMERICAN FASHION DESIGNER
CHRISTIAN SIRIANO at ENCHANTED BALLYNAHINCH FASHION SHOOT
ROSLEAGUE MANOR
Resting on the quiet shores of Ballinakill Bay, and beautifully secluded within 30 acres of its own private woodland, Rosleague Manor in Connemara is one of Ireland’s finest regency hotels. Member of Ireland’s Blue Book Awarded No.9 in Top 25 Small Hotels in Ireland on TripAdvisor CALL OR VISIT OUR WEBSITE TO BOOK AND EXPERIENCE IRELAND TODAY.
info @ rosleague.com
•
(+353) 095-41101
•
Rosleague.com
•
Connemara, Co. Galway, Ireland
A B E AU T I F U L 1,000 ďšş AC R E ES TAT E
6-Acre Victorian Walled Garden Restored Rooms in the Abbey Gothic Church History Talks and Guided Tours * Woodland and Lakeshore Walks Award-Winning CafĂŠ and Garden Tea House Craft and Design Shop
*Daily
history talks are available year-round; garden tours are available during the summer months.
+353 95 52001 bookings@kylemoreabbey.com www.kylemoreabbey.com
E S TA B L I S H E D : 1 9 7 9
Luxury Fur and Faux Fur Accessoriess Former colleagues Darryl Meattey and Sue Adams (with “Surell”
luxury fashion accessories for women, men, and kids for more
being a combination of their first names) founded Surell Accessories
than thirty-five years. Specializing in fine fur, shearling, suede,
in 1979 in New Hampshire. Upon Adams’s retirement in 2002,
and leather, Surell offers scarves, hats, gloves, earmuffs, and vests.
Surell became a family business with Darryl’s wife, Lois, and his two sons, Daniel and Dominic, all partners in the company.
Products are currently available at fine retailers including: Saks Fifth Avenue, Neiman Marcus, Lord & Taylor, Bloomingdale’s,
With headquarters and an outlet store in Troy, New Hampshire and
Brooks Brothers, Nordstrom, Macy’s, and others across North
a showroom in New York City, Surell has been the producer of
America and worldwide.
ShopSurell.com +001 (603) 242-7784
Headquarters
Showroom
198 North Main St, Troy, New Hampshire 03465
55 W. 39th St., Suite 300 New York, NY 10018.
CONTENTS FEATURE An Enchantment: Ballynahinch Castle and Christian Siriano Fashions Inspire the Feminine Hunter 26
TRAVELLING THE WEST Connemara: A Beauty Like No Other 52 Tribal City: The Bridge to
10
Connemara 62 The Mystic Isle of Inishbofin 86 Road Tripping the Wild Atlantic Way 102 The Ultimate Day Trip: A Jaunt in Westport, Ireland 126
EVENTS AND ACTIVITIES A Story of Adventure 20
102
Clifden Arts Festival 42 Connemara Calendar of Events 2016 50 Hats Off to the Races! 59
HISTORY AND EDUCATION Clifden: A Vibrant, Resourceful, and Creative Community 10 Partners in Education: The Past and Future of Tullycross Village 16 To the End of the Line: The Roads and Rails to Connemara 45 Guglielmo Marconi: Connecting the World 92 The Continuing Story of Kylemore Abbey 96 The Emerald Coast Meets the Emerald Isle 106
A TASTE OF THE EMERALD ISLE Breaking Eggs: Food and Family in Western Ireland 36 A Trip to Bountiful Ballymaloe 78
TYING THE KNOT Ann-Marie Aspell and Tom O’Neill 110 Ethel Reidy and Garrett Coughlan 114 Laura Larkin and Brian McCaffrey 118 Neasa Cooke and John French 122
THE CRAFT OF TRADITION Bespoke Luxury: Handcrafted in the West of Ireland 47 Reframing the Future 70 A Family Affair: Glenbricken Farm and Its Legacy 74
ON THE COVER A glorious sunny day at Ballynahinch Castle hotel along the tranquil Owenmore River presented the perfect setting for an enchanting photo shoot to feature stunning couture clothing by American designer Christian Siriano, luxurious furs by Surell Accessories, and elegant jewelry provided by Destin Jewelers of north-west Florida. Model Clara McSweeney poses sweetly with Whoopi the pony from Connemara Equestrian Escapes,
26
reflecting the theme of the ‘feminine hunter’. photo by Alex
Hutchinson
hair and make-up by Bellissimo
Galway
ConnemaraLife.ie
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5
CRE ATI V E TE A M: FOUNDER / EDITOR-IN-CHIEF LISA BURWELL Lisa@ConnemaraLife.ie FOUNDER / PUBLISHER GERALD BURWELL Gerald@ConnemaraLife.ie
E DITORIAL MANAGING EDITOR JORDAN STAGGS CHIEF COPY EDITOR MARGARET STEVENSON CONTRIBUTING WRITERS LESLEY EMERSON, NICHOLAS GRUNDY, KEVIN HEANUE, PK JOYCE, LUKE MURRAY, EITHNE O’HALLORAN, BREANDAN O’SCANAILL, TORI PHELPS, CLIODHNA PRENDERGAST, MARIA ELENA SINIBALDI, JOHN SWEENEY, TREENA SWEENEY, KATHLEEN VILLIERS-TUTHILL, CIARA YOUNG
ART AND PHOTOG RAPHY ART DIRECTOR TRACEY THOMAS FILM CURATORS SHANE REYNOLDS, BARRY RYAN GRAPHIC DESIGNERS LUCY MASHBURN, RINN GARLANGER CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS GERARD CONNEELY, MARIE COYNE, TREVOR DUBBER, MARIANNE RYAN DUFFEY, COLLEEN DUFFLEY, MARK FURNISS, NICHOLAS GRUNDY, AOIFE HERRIOTT, ALEX HUTCHINSON, GABRIELA INSURATELU, MATT LOUGHREY, JOHN MCMAHON, DAREK NOVAK, GERALDINE O’BRIEN, AUBRIE OFFERDAHL, CLIODHNA PRENDERGAST, MICHELLE PRUNTY, NICK RHYNE, RIHARDZZ, ROMONA ROBBINS, STEPHANIE SALMON, RICHARD SEMIK, DAVID STEELE, KELLIE DIANE STEWART, ROLF G. WACKENBERG
ADV ER TI SING , SALES, AND MARKETING OFFICE DIRECTOR SHARON DUANE Sharon@ConnemaraLife.ie SALES AND MARKETING DIRECTOR LAUREN SHAW MARKETING MANAGER AMANDA CROWLEY Amanda@ConnemaraLife.ie SOCIAL MARKETING MANAGER SUVA ANG-MENDOZA WEB DEVELOPERS MEGHN HILL, MARK THOMAS INTERN MICAH RYAN Printed by Boylan Print Group Drogheda, County Louth, Ireland
PUBLISHED BY
The Grain Store, Suite 1, Clifden, Co. Galway theideaboutique
.com
Contact us at info@theideaboutique.com
A PROUD MEMBER OF
85.158.9879 All contents herein are Copyright © 2015 The Idea Boutique, Ltd. (the Publisher). All rights reserved. No part of this periodical may be reproduced without written permission from the Publisher. Connemara Life is a travel and tourism magazine and is published one time annually. The opinions herein are not necessarily those of the Publisher. The Publisher and its advertisers will not be held responsible for any errors found in this publication. The Publisher is not liable for the accuracy of statements made by its advertisers. Ads that appear in this publication are not intended as offers where prohibited by law. The Publisher is not responsible for photography or artwork submitted by freelance or outside contributors. The Publisher reserves the right to publish any letter addressed to the editor or the Publisher.
6
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ConnemaraLife.ie
A NOTE FROM THE EDITOR
ODE TO
CONNEMARA Oh, how I love Connemara A haunting beauty abides along her shores. I thought it was my ancestral connections I thought it was living here with my grandmother one summer as a teenager I thought it was how safe and peaceful the Twelve Bens made me feel as they give me refuge And I thought it was because my mother had lived here in her youth and loved her so, that I now love her so. Once she enchants you there is no getting free. Space and breath abide here. Oh, Connemara, how I love you so. Dear Readers, Now that I have laid my soul bare to you, I am so proud and honored to publish the second annual edition of Connemara Life magazine and hope you too fall in love with Connemara—if you haven’t already. Celebrating this ethereal place and telling its stories on these pages makes my heart sing with happiness. Our Florida-based branding and publishing company, The Idea Boutique, opened a satellite office on Bridge Street in Clifden, County Galway, two years ago, with Connemara native Sharon Duane at the helm as director. Sharon has done a fantastic job as our brand ambassador and as liaison between our countries, and I’m forever grateful. As publishers and owners of an American lifestyle magazine, VIE, we are also able to weave Connemara Life into the pages of its November/December 2016 Sophisticate Issue. VIE is found in boutique bookshops, newsagents, and airports across the US, including John F. Kennedy International (New York), Boston Logan International, O’Hare International and Midway International (Chicago), Philadelphia International, Baltimore/ Editor-in-Chief/Founder Lisa Burwell at Renvyle House Hotel Photo by Marianne Ryan Duffey
Washington International, William P. Hobby (Houston), Memphis International, Nashville International, Orlando International, and Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International, as well as some Florida regional airports. Connemara Life is also being distributed in Shannon, Cork, and Dublin airports, in the Sunday Business Post, in Topaz service stations, and in bookshops, newsagents, and other businesses throughout Connemara. You will even find the magazine in the guest rooms of such distinguished locations as Rosleague Manor, Clifden Station House Hotel, Renvyle House Hotel, and Ballynahinch Castle. I’ve been a long-time admirer of American fashion designer Christian Siriano, whom we asked to join the Connemara Life creative crew for this issue. His couture gowns adorned Faye Dinsmore and Clara McSweeney, stunning models from Andrea Roche Model Agency, for our cover photo shoot and story at the magical Ballynahinch Castle. This magical place called for a grand-scale photo shoot, and I’d like to give praise and thanks to everyone involved. Read all about it in ‘An Enchantment: Ballynahinch Castle and Christian Siriano Fashions Inspire the Feminine Hunter’, as seen through the watchful and introspective eyes of our managing editor, Jordan Staggs. Photographer Alex Hutchinson is one of the absolute best in the business and he captured the magic of the day beautifully through his lens! Special acknowledgements go to Christian Siriano and Brad Walsh for joining us, and to Frank Fahey from Spirit of Ireland Executive Travel for being such a strong supporter and partner with us on this photo shoot. (Stay tuned on our Connemara Life Facebook page for more details about a giveaway for an all-expense-paid trip for two to Ireland in the near future, as we continue our corporate partnership with Spirit of Ireland and between our two countries!) As it showcases one of the most beautiful places on earth, I hope Connemara Life is able to give a glimpse of her beauty and widely entice you to visit her shores. With much Love and Gratitude, — Lisa ConnemaraLife.ie
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OUTSIDE FRONT COVER NORTHWEST FLORIDA – COLA 2 COLA
WINTER 2010
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fe
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Holiday Style
Ballet
PERSPECTIVES
Jacob Meyer
Dressing Tables for the Holidays
The Pursuit of Happiness
O You! Conference in Atlanta
ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT
Prudence Bruns
ens
hepard Captures the Magic
Jukebox Gala
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Our first GiVIE
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VIE ’s Favorite Things
Gift Giving, Recipes, and Ideas for Entertaining
A C E L E B R AT I O N O F FA S H I O NVIEZINE.COM , F O OWINTER D & F U1 N 2010
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Femme au chapeau de paille bleue, Pablo Picasso Linocut in colors (1962)
September/October 2015
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Salvatore Ferragamo Brewing Biodiesel
A Seaside Landmark
THE SEASONS OF IRELAND CONNEMARA IS BEAUTIFUL, RAIN OR SHINE
THE ART OF LIFE
ORD
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HOME & GARDEN
SWIMSUITS
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PR OJEC T D R EA M S V I E C OV E R S N E W YO R K ' S FA S H I O N W E E K !
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SPINNING YOUR WHEELS
Kim Duke-Layden Visits South Lake Tahoe
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COLA 2 COLA Physicians Guide
on Week
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Greg Barnhill
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Yolo Boarding
Sabine Laguna Wins VIE’s Summer Giveaway
A CUR ATED COLLECTION
NYC MERCEDES - BENZ FASHION WEEK
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Dettles Celebrate 30 Years
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nt Together
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NORTHWEST FLOR IDA’S
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Eating Local!
COLA 2 COLA Physicians Guide
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Pensacola Opera Presents
Still Rockin’ in the Free World
SPRING - SUMMER 2008
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GET HEALTHY
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Neil Young
Live
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Gourmet Holiday Desserts
Jessie Shepard and Dia Sather
Five Years of Sinfonia Gulf Coast The Sandra Brooks Jewelry Collection
TOMMY CROW STUDIOS presents
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Michael Granberry
Fall Writers Conference
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COMPLIMENTARY WINTER 2009
Brandan Babineaux Wins VIE’s Photo Contest Sabine Laguna Wins VIE’s Summer Giveaway
VINTAGE
THE WILD ATLANTIC WAY
SWIMSUITS
THE CENTENNIAL OF NAVAL AVIATION
VIEZINE.COM FALL 2010
THE MEN’S ISSUE
STORYTELLERS CELEBRATE the TREASURE
THE OBJECT OF OUR AFFECTION 1
IT’S A MAN’S WORLD AF TER ALL
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ARTIST SHANTELL MARTIN COVERS THE GLOBE
January/February 2015
THE
THE HOME & GARDEN ISSUE
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COMPLIMENTARY
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A Sense of Place The Muscogee Nation
Giving Beauty from Ashes
Nancy Alcorn of Mercy Ministries
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FOREVER & ALWAYS
Plus Moving to Pier Park in 2009
Pensacola's 450th Anniversary VIEcation Give-Away!
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THE
THE
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BAMAJAM!
ISSUE
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March/April 2013
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Win 1 of 3 great prizes from St. Joe!
A FAIRY TALE TO LIFE COMES BALLYNAHINCH CASTLE
ISSUE
STARS FELL ON ALABAMA!
EMERIL & ALDEN LAGASSE
March/April 2014
VIE - Fall / Winter 2008
THE HOLIDAY ISSUE
THE ARTIST ISSUE
TYING the KNOT IN CONNEMARA
Seabreeze Jazz Festival
A N E X P R ES S I O N O F L I FE
May/June 2013
C E L E B R AT E T H E S E A S O N W I T H L OV E
November/December 2012
1
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MEGAWATT STAR
KRISTIN
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SINFONIA GULF COAST’S
TENTH-ANNIVERSARY SEASON
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ARTISTRY IN MOTION
DR AGON CON 2015
CHRISTIAN
NERD IS THE NEW BLACK
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TOMMY CROW STUDIOS presents
SIRIANO DRESSES THE STARS
FIND YOUR FANDOM
THE MASTERS OF MODERN ART
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A LIFE OF SACRIFICE
Nancy Alcorn of Mercy Ministries
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THE FAMILY WE CHOOSE
MORGAN JAMES TAKES THE STAGE
CARRIE UNDERWOOD WAS BORN TO SHINE
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A Fabulous and Fashionable Life
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Dettles Celebrate 30 Years
Jukebox Gala
FOR THE LOVE OF FOOD
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Biting the Apple
Northwest Florida Physicians Spotlight Feature
A Seaside Landmark
PLUS: Northwest Florida Vacation Guide
Culinary Adventures in NYC
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ert Cooks a Book
STARS FELL ON ALABAMA!
Five Years of Sinfonia Gulf Coast The Sandra Brooks Jewelry Collection
A Writer’s Life
Michael Lindley Publishes Grayton Winds
COUTURE
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O You! Conference in Atlanta
SPINNING YOUR WHEELS
Journey Performs Live
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BAMAJAM! NORTHWEST FLORIDA – COLA 2 COLA®
tist
Femme au chapeau de paille bleue, Pablo Picasso Linocut in colors (1962)
HOME & GARDEN
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r
Win 1 of 3 great prizes from St. Joe!
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A Story of Hope from Behind the Lens
An in-depth review by Prudence Bruns
of Publishing
VIEcation Give-Away!
A CUR ATED COLLECTION
September/October 2014
PERSPECTIVES
A CALENDAR OF FESTIVALS AND FOLLIES
Escape to Create’s Fall Writers Conference
Moving to Pier Park in 2009
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C’EST LA VIE
NORTHWEST FLORIDA – COLA 2 COLA®
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f Life
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A Ruby Anniversary
icasity Turns 25
AN GORTA MÓR
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ot Built in a Day
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of Place
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T FLORIDA COLA
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November/December 2015
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THE ANNIVERSARY EDITION
Brandan Babineaux Wins VIE’s Photo Contest Sabine Laguna Wins VIE’s Summer Giveaway
VINTAGE
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SWIMSUITS
THE CENTENNIAL OF NAVAL AVIATION
Summer 2011
THE OBJECT OF OUR AFFECTION VIEZINE.COM FALL 2010
1
January/February 2013
IT’S A MAN’S WORLD AF TER ALL
1
NORTHWEST FLORIDA – COLA 2 COLA®
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THE WILD ATLANTIC WAY
FOOD + FAMILY
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st
RO BERT REDFORD MAKE A D I F F ER EN CE!
VIE - Spring 2009
January/February 2016
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CANYONS BEYOND THE EIFFEL TOWER BEST SUNSETS GATEWAY RESORT & SPA IN THE WORLD THE GREAT THE BRIDGES OF PARIS CALIZA POOL IN ALYS BEACH ESCAPE COMMANDS ATTENTION AWAIT
July/August 2014
FOOD & FASHION
FOOD & FASHION
THE
A FAIRY TALE TO LIFE COMES BALLYNAHINCH CASTLE
ARE THE BEAT!
THE HOME & GARDEN ISSUE
VOYAGER ISSUE
TYING the KNOT IN CONNEMARA
THE
THE
FOREVER & ALWAYS
es
ISSUE
ISSUE
July/August 2015
March/April 2013
CUISINE MEETS COUTURE
March/April 2014
NORTHWEST FLORIDA – COLA 2 COLA®
NORTHWEST FLORIDA – COLA 2 COLA®
NORTHWEST FLORIDA – COLA 2 COLA®
NORTHWEST FLORIDA – COLA 2 COLA®
MEGAWATT STAR
KRISTIN
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SINFONIA GULF COAST’S
TENTH-ANNIVERSARY SEASON
FOR THE LOVE OF FOOD
DR AGON CON 2015
NERD IS THE NEW BLACK
The Soul of BBQ
The Best from COLA 2 COLA
Beer 101
with Grayton Beer Company
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VOYAGER A Journey to Beale Street
A LIFE OF SACRIFICE
Remembering Memphis Music Legends
A Luxury Retreat
Fountainview Mansion
THE FAMILY WE CHOOSE
THE WRITTEN WORD Haley Kilpatrick
Get Healthy
THE
FOOD & FASHION
Back to the Barre
Get Out
Walking on Water
ISSUE
LIFE IS BE AUTIFUL
May/June 2012
THE ALL-AMERICAN SUMMER BRINGING PREPPY BACK
THE HOLIDAY ISSUE
THE ARTIST ISSUE
Leading a Generation’s Renaissance
May/June 2013
A N E X P R ES S I O N O F L I FE
November/December 2012
C E L E B R AT E T H E S E A S O N W I T H L OV E
THE MUSIC ISSUE
November/December 2013
EMERIL & ALDEN LAGASSE
MORGAN JAMES TAKES THE STAGE
THE MUSIC ISSUE
November/December 2014
CARRIE UNDERWOOD WAS BORN TO SHINE
November/December 2015
ARTISTRY IN MOTION
CHRISTIAN
SIRIANO DRESSES THE STARS CHRISTMAS IN NEW YORK
TOP FIVE HOLIDAY DESTINATIONS
OUTSIDE FRONT COVER
Perspectives
Seaside's Perspicasity Turns 25
The Art of Life
THE ART OF LIFE
Behind the Lens
Steve Wagner
Portrait of an Artist
Photographer Jessie Shepard Captures the Magic
The Joy of Publishing Sister Schubert Cooks a Book
COLA 2 COLA Physicians Guide
THE VOYAGER
Mercedes-Benz Fall Fashion Week
THE ART OF LIFE
2011 Fall Fashions Unveiled
Kim Duke-Layden Visits South Lake Tahoe
A Fabulous and Fashionable Life
Pensacola Opera Presents
Dettles Celebrate 30 Years
Jukebox Gala
FOR THE LOVE OF FOOD
BEHIND THE LENS
THE CONNEMARA GREENWAY BY BIKE
GET HEALTHY
Michael Lindley Publishes Grayton Winds
COUTURE
The Pursuit of Happiness
O You! Conference in Atlanta
SPINNING YOUR WHEELS
Journey Performs Live
A Writer’s Life
9/11: The Tenth Anniversary
A Story of Hope from Behind the Lens
An in-depth review by Prudence Bruns
Five Years of Sinfonia Gulf Coast The Sandra Brooks Jewelry Collection
THE WRITTEN WORD
PERSPECTIVES
A CALENDAR OF FESTIVALS AND FOLLIES
Escape to Create’s Fall Writers Conference
The Language of Light
PLUS:
Biting the Apple
An Exposé on Its Power
Northwest Florida Vacation Guide
Culinary Adventures in NYC
Plus
Plus
Bud & Alley’s Turns 25
Birds of a Feather Paint Together
A Celebration of Songs
VIE ’s Favorite Things
A Legendary Wedding Giveaway
Gift Giving, Recipes, and Ideas for Entertaining
At Emerald Grande – Our first GiVIE
V I E P AY S T R I B U T E
VIE - Summer 2009
THE WILD ATLANTIC WAY
HOLIDAY GIFT GUIDE
STORYTELLERS CELEBRATE the TREASURE
S H O P Y O U R W AY F R O M C O L A 2 C O L A
1
THE FASHION ISSUE
A Cajun Road Trip
Celebrating Mardi Gras along Louisiana’s Acadiana Trail
30A Songwriters Festival
MOTHER'S DAY
A Seaside Landmark
Northwest Florida Physicians Spotlight Feature
The Life of a Snowbird
Chef Olivier Gaupin Romona Robbin's Egypt The King & Queen of Spain The Beautiful Game
VIE - Winter 2009
FALL 2010
NORTHWEST FLORIDA – COLA 2 COLA®
CONNEMARA IS BEAUTIFUL, RAIN OR SHINE
MUSSELS, MARATHONS, AND MORE
A Ruby Anniversary
Rome Was Not Built in a Day
CONNEMARA PONIES
WESTERN IRELAND’S PRIDE and JOY
THE SEASONS OF IRELAND
The Art of Life Northwest Florida Ballet
A Sense of Place
AN GORTA MÓR
A HISTORY Worth REMEMBRANCE
NORTHWEST FLORIDA – COLA 2 COLA
THE BEAUTY of TURF in the HEARTH
NORTHWEST FLORIDA – COLA 2 COLA®
NORTHWEST FLORIDA COLA 2 COLA
HARVESTING HISTORY
COMPLIMENTARY WINTER 2009
NORTHWEST FLORIDA – COLA 2 COLA®
NORTHWEST FLORIDA – COLA 2 COLA
COMPLIMENTARY SUMMER 2009
NYC MERCEDES - BENZ FASHION WEEK
Winter 2011
Special Feature
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A view of the quaint town of Clifden in County Galway at sunrise, as seen from the nearby scenic Sky Road
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Clifden
A Vibrant, Resourceful, and Creative Community By Kathleen Villiers-Tuthill Photography by Mark Furniss
In May 2012, Clifden marked the bicentenary of its founding with a week-long festival of talks, heritage walks, concerts, and street entertainment as well as a traditional boat regatta. The main focus of the celebrations was to honour the town’s founder, John D’Arcy, and to pay tribute to those who had inhabited this place before us.
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lifden is distinctive because, from the start, it was a created community that was brought together by John D’Arcy, who established the town in 1812 to increase the income of his remote seventeen-thousand-acre Connemara estate and to raise the living standards of his tenants there. Establishing a town in Connemara in the early nineteenth century was a brave step by a young man; D’Arcy was only twenty-seven years of age. At the time, Connemara was an isolated, underdeveloped wilderness. A majority of its population lived along the coast, and almost all communication with other parts of Ireland and the world was by sea. Just one road ran through the interior, and it was poorly surfaced, frequently flooded in wintertime, and totally unsuitable for a wheeled vehicle. The rest of the district was only accessible on foot or by horseback over well-worn paths that had been in use for centuries. In addition, Connemara had a lawless reputation and was renowned for illicit distilling (poitín making) and smuggling, making it all the more difficult for D’Arcy to attract legitimate business to his new town.
The Clifden we recognise today took shape in the 1820s thanks to significant improvements in the quantity and quality of the houses being built; the number of dwellings rose from 46 in 1821 to 290 just a decade later.
Clifden founder John D’Arcy Photo courtesy of Adrian Lead
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The D’Arcy estate ran along the coast from Streamstown Bay to Ardbear Bay and was bordered on the east by the Ballynahinch estate, property of the Martin family. The D’Arcy family had held the Connemara lands for over 150 years, along with other estates in the east of the county. John D’Arcy, however, was the first of the family to take up residence in Connemara; he built Clifden Castle on the Sky Road and moved there with his young family following the death of his wife, Frances, in 1815. He remarried in 1820 and had fourteen children total.
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Although founded in 1812, the town of Clifden took many years to develop, and the project might well have failed were it not for D’Arcy’s energy, singlemindedness, and determination. D’Arcy succeeded in attracting people to this inhospitable district by offering long leases at low rents. However, because of the region’s many disadvantages, it required an exceptional pioneering spirit to choose to live here. The early citizens of Clifden came from all parts of Ireland, and this diverse community established itself under D’Arcy’s management. It was D’Arcy’s proud boast that, although the people of the town were of ‘different religions and from different parts of the Kingdom’, they lived in harmony. The Clifden we recognise today took shape in the 1820s thanks to significant improvements in the quantity and quality of the houses being built; the number of dwellings rose from 46 in 1821 to 290 just a decade later. This is attributed to the arrival of a number of skilled craftsmen who were employed in public works, chiefly road and pier construction, that were then under way in the district. The houses flanked broad streets and were a mixture of private residences and ground-floor shops with living quarters above. To accommodate the growing population, Protestant and Roman Catholic churches and schools were erected, and a brewery, a distillery, and a mill were established on the banks of the Owenglin River, next to the waterfall. For the administration of justice, a police barracks, a courthouse, and a jail were also added. Following the establishment of the Poor Law relief system in the 1830s, the town became the centre for administering relief to the Clifden Union, which covered 191,426 acres and had a population of 33,465 in 1841. This covered most of the area we refer to as Connemara today. The Union workhouse, a four-storey building on the Galway Road with accommodations for three hundred destitute poor, was in use from 1847 to 1921. During the Great Famine of the late 1840s, when starvation, sickness, and death were everywhere to be found, the Union workhouse building was extended to house almost a thousand, and auxiliary workhouses and fever hospitals were established throughout the Clifden Union. The highest number of workhouse inhabitants recorded was in February 1850, when the combined buildings held 1,963 people. Those denied entry to the workhouse filled the streets of Clifden in search of charity or outdoor relief. They were frequently forced to exchange a portion of their free rations for space in a crowded tenement. The
overcrowded tenements, jail, and workhouse became breeding grounds for cholera and fever, resulting in many deaths. Few families were exempt from the effects of the famine. John D’Arcy died in 1839, and the town and estate were passed to his son Hyacinth. The estate was, however, greatly in debt, and the effects of the famine left Hyacinth bankrupt. As a result, the D’Arcy estate and the town were sold in 1850 to the Eyre family of Bath, England, for a mere £4,000. Various members of the family lived at Clifden Castle until the 1920s. The influence of the Eyres on the affairs of the town would, however, never be more than marginal when compared with the impact of John D’Arcy.
Main Street, Clifden, by Robert French. Published between 1865–1914, courtesy of the Lawrence Collection, National Library Ireland
The opening of a rail link between Galway and Clifden in 1895 aided the development of agriculture and fisheries in the region, and helped to establish the tourism industry for which Connemara is now famous.
The years following the Great Famine saw the town struggle to survive commercially; periodic crop failures frequently left the people in debt to shopkeepers, and the very poor had to seek temporary relief at the workhouse. Many small farmers saw emigration as their only option. Emigration schemes set up by Father James Nugent (a Catholic priest from Liverpool) and James H. Tuke (a Quaker from York) aided over 3,500 men, women, and children with exchanging their harsh existence in Connemara for the chance of a better life in North America in the early 1880s. These emigrants, in turn, sent home money to pay the passage for family members they left behind, starting a chain migration that continued for decades. The descendants of many of these emigrants are found among Connemara’s summer visitors today, searching for family graves and homesteads, and frequently making contact with long-lost relatives. The opening of a rail link between Galway and Clifden in 1895 aided the development of agriculture and fisheries in the region, and helped to establish the tourism industry for which Connemara is now famous. The rail line, however, was never profitable and was closed in 1935.
Fishing and sailing boats await their next voyage into Clifden Harbour, just a short walk from town
The local economy was further boosted with the 1907 opening of the Marconi wireless station south-west of Clifden at Derrygimlagh. The station received its first commercial wireless message from its sister station in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, on 17 October that year. The Marconi Company employed a large, well-paid staff of operators, engineers, and maintenance men, all of whom lived on or near the station and were generous in their patronage of local businesses. The station also offered casual work to over two hundred local men, providing them with sufficient earnings to make working their farms a viable alternative to emigration. ConnemaraLife.ie
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The vigour and resolve to create a vibrant, resourceful, and creative community have been the recurring theme in the history of the town. That spirit has enabled Clifden to prosper and continue to attract new people. Today, Clifden’s Main Street boasts colourful shops, galleries, pubs, cafes, and more.
The station closed in 1922 after sustaining damage in an attack by Republican forces during the Civil War. The arrival of the first non-stop transatlantic flight at the Marconi station on 15 June 1919 was announced in banner headlines around the world. Pilot Captain John Alcock and navigator Lieutenant Arthur Whitten Brown had made the flight from Saint John’s, Newfoundland, to Derrygimlagh in sixteen hours and twenty-eight minutes, writing their names, and that of the town, in the annals of aviation history. It is thought that 150 men from Clifden enlisted in the British forces during the Great War, and there were many more from the wider Connemara area. Some lost their lives at the front, but most returned to play their part in the formation of the Irish state, either as civilians or as soldiers.
Take a stroll through the town’s vibrant market each Friday to pick up fresh flowers and other local goods. You may even hear some music on the street!
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The turbulent years of the War of Independence and the Civil War from 1919 to 1923 brought loss of life, personal tragedy, and frequent disruptions to the civic life of the Clifden community. During the War of Independence, raids by the regular police and the emergency special force of Black and Tans on the homes of republican supporters in 1920 escalated to terror in March 1921, when three men—two RIC and one civilian—were killed on the streets of the town and the Black and Tans set fourteen houses on fire. Connemara witnessed a good deal of fighting in the Civil War of 1922– 1923. Control of Clifden shifted between the opposing sides three times in the space of four months from August to December 1922, and a tenhour battle was fought in the streets on Sunday, 29 October. The soldiers of the Free State eventually retook and held the town on 16 December 1922. Political stability was soon re-established. Emigration continued to be a central element in the patterns of life in the decades following the establishment of the Irish Free State in 1922. However, the vigour and resolve to create a vibrant, resourceful, and creative community have been the recurring theme in the history of the town. That spirit has enabled Clifden to prosper and continue to attract new people endowed with the energy, talent, and determination to enhance the local community. Today, Clifden is an example of how priceless human capital—ambition, human effort, and entrepreneurship—has been developed to match the unrivalled beauty of its physical setting. This compelling combination has enabled Clifden to charm visitors and energise the local population to create a lively economy; a rich communal culture of societies, festivals, and activities; and a firm sense of local pride and responsibility.
Kathleen Villiers-Tuthill is an author and historian living in Connemara. www.ConnemaraGirlPublications.com
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T H E P A S T A N D F U T U R E O F T U L LY C R O S S V I L L A G E By Kevin Heanue
Photo courtesy of New England College
The picturesque village of Tullycross in Renvyle, Connemara, is gaining a reputation as the destination of choice for US colleges to base their Ireland study abroad programmes, especially if they want to offer students a community-engaged experience. By the end of 2017, students and faculty from eight US colleges in six different states will come to Tullycross for periods ranging from one week to a full semester to study Irish history, literature, and culture; take up internships with local organisations; engage in community-focused research and scholarship with Irish academics and community members; get involved in service-learning activities; and have a deep cultural immersion experience within a supportive rural community. They do this with the help of a local development organisation named Connemara West. But how did this all begin? In 1973, Aquinas College in Grand Rapids, Michigan, started its Ireland study abroad programme in Tullycross by bringing students
and two faculty members to the village for two semesters. They stayed—and students and faculty continue to stay each year for a spring semester— in the nine Renvyle thatched cottages owned by Connemara West, a non-profit, locally owned and managed development organisation based in Letterfrack village, five kilometres away from Tullycross. Established in 1971 and owned by five hundred local shareholders, Connemara West is managed by a volunteer board of nine local directors and employs twenty-eight people. Its mission is to create a sustainable economic, social, and cultural future for north-west Connemara by working with private and public Irish and international organisations to develop innovative solutions to local employment, education, communication, and social service provision challenges. Over the past forty-three years, the annual visit from Aquinas College has had an immense social and cultural impact on the Tullycross community, including the establishment of many deep and lasting friendships, several marriages, wide-ranging personnel exchanges across the Atlantic, and even financial support from Aquinas College for a member of the ConnemaraLife.ie
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Photo courtesy of Aquinas College
Connemara West’s support of study abroad programmes provides a safe, welcoming cultural immersion experience to the students and faculty of these colleges, drawing on four decades of experience in doing so. Renvyle community to study full-time in the United States. Also, as Aquinas College students arrive in Tullycross each January to begin their four-month stay, they bring a welcome boost of young people into a community that has, over the past seven to eight years, witnessed the emigration of a lot of its own young people due to economic recession. The students and faculty live, shop, and socialise in the locality for the duration of their stay. This helps sustain employment in local businesses and services. The scale of what has happened is staggering. Aquinas College has so far probably brought more than a thousand students and faculty to Tullycross, not to mention the family and friends who also visit.
Photo courtesy of Lourdes University
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These positive impacts brought forth Connemara West’s education-led local development strategy in the late 2000s. It seeks to make Tullycross and the Renvyle Peninsula the destination of choice for US colleges wishing to provide their students with high-impact educational practices in an Irish rural environment and, in turn, be an economic, social, and cultural stimulus for the Renvyle community. In partnership with Aquinas College, the company began to discuss how other US colleges could be brought to Tullycross. In due course, these discussions led to the signing of a memorandum of understanding between the two
organisations. Creating a residential education centre for research, education, and community engagement in Tullycross was one goal of that agreement. That goal is now becoming a reality. Aquinas College provided Connemara West with introductions to key personnel at other US colleges who might be interested in starting study abroad programmes in Ireland. News about the opportunity to come to Tullycross also spread among US colleges by word of mouth, leading some to contact Connemara West. In 2008, Maine Maritime College, based in Castine, Maine, brought its first group of students to the village. Lourdes University in Sylvania, Ohio, and Kirkwood Community College of Iowa City, Iowa, also began programmes with Tullycross in 2013. In 2016, Saint Louis University of Saint Louis, Missouri; Grand Valley State University of Grand Rapids, Michigan; and New Hampshire Technical Institute of Concord, New Hampshire, will bring students on their inaugural visits. New England College of Henniker, New Hampshire, plans to begin its programme in 2017. The students from these colleges span a variety of disciplines, ethnic backgrounds, and ages, ensuring a diverse cultural experience for the residents of Tullycross also. What is it about Tullycross that US colleges find attractive as a location for their study abroad programmes? The small village’s resident population doesn’t much exceed thirty people, and its limits contain a church, a village hall, a credit union, two bars, a hotel, and a diner. Connemara West’s support of study abroad programmes provides a safe, welcoming cultural immersion experience to the students and faculty of these colleges, drawing on four decades of experience in doing so. The local community in Tullycross village makes the experience worthwhile. In addition, the locality has a high density of collaborating organisations that allow Connemara West to facilitate internships, research, and service learning opportunities for the US colleges and therefore can help these colleges deliver high-impact education practices to their students in a uniquely rural yet international context, which is highly desirable. Of course, it helps that Tullycross is situated in a stunningly beautiful part of Connemara, close to the Atlantic Ocean. Connemara West has obtained planning permission for a major refurbishment and renovation of the nine thatched cottages in Tullycross where the students and faculty live during their visits. When renovated, the cottages will accommodate forty students and professors. In addition, a planned new-build education centre in the village will contain a fifty-seat auditorium, a Wi-Fi-enabled learning hub/library, group study/ breakout rooms, video conferencing facilities, a conference room, and a coffee dock.
Photo courtesy of New Hampshire Technical Institute
In addition to being a teaching base for the study abroad programmes for the US colleges already recruited, the education centre will have many other functions: a dissertation completion retreat for US graduate students; a US college faculty professional development centre; a lead venue for a summer programme on resilience and sustainability; a venue for online delivery and certification of courses from US colleges to Irish communities; an administrative and promotional centre for fellowships for Irish residents to the US colleges that use the centre; a centre for comparative research on rural community leadership and engagement; and a location for community meeting rooms, training, and events. A fundraising campaign to finance these developments has begun in both the US and Ireland.
What is happening in Tullycross has huge potential to act as a positive force for change into the future. What is happening in Tullycross has huge potential to act as a positive force for change into the future. Other rural communities throughout Ireland can learn lessons from the Tullycross experience and seek to forge their own links with US colleges. The opportunity is underpinned by a large market. In 2013, approximately 289,000 US students studied abroad, with 53 per cent coming to Europe but only 2.8 per cent studying in Ireland. Both US colleges and Irish communities could explore these possibilities by attending the Interchanges microconference held in Renvyle House Hotel, Connemara, in mid June each year. The aim of Interchanges is to provide a forum where intending or existing independent US–Ireland study abroad programme directors and other faculty and students can network with each other and with Irish collaborative partners on location in rural Ireland. ConnemaraLife.ie
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a story of
By Ciara Young
Photography courtesy of Killary Adventure Co.
Nestled in the foothills of the Maumturk Mountains and overlooking Killary Fjord sits the family-run Killary Adventure Company. In 2016, it celebrates over thirty-five years bringing the spirit of adventure to those who cross its threshold. he company has grown from humble beginnings in a farm shed not ten kilometres from its current location to now offering not only adventure activities for all ages but also organising guided and self-guided walking and cycling tours in the area with its Connemara Adventure Tours, as well as producing adventure events and competitions through its Killary Gaelforce programme, which has a calendar of eleven events in 2016. Killary Adventure Company was the brainchild of Jamie and Mary Young, who met while working at an outdoor centre in rural Scotland. They travelled extensively before visiting Ireland. Jamie participated in the 1976 single-handed sailing race to America, and then the Youngs spent their honeymoon sailing to America in a twenty-six-foot boat designed for single-handed sailing. In 1979, they once again took to the water, spending a year working on the famous eighty-foot ocean-racing yacht Ondine.
The early 1990s saw the completion of extensive renovations at Killary Lodge, a country house that dates back to 1830. Situated on thirty acres of land with two beaches and a pier, Killary Lodge and its services were ideal for guests to relax amid the stunning setting or venture forth on one of the many locally available activities. Killary Lodge operated as a thriving business until 2006, when it was sold to another company. The property now operates as a youth hostel. The new millennium came and with it some dynamic changes, including a sad goodbye to Little Killary Adventure Centre, which had served Connemara well for twenty years, and a big welcome to Killary Adventure Company, which oversees all the adventure
The Youngs made the decision to set up an adventure centre, and in 1979, they also came to Ireland to try and find a location that would suit their needs. They settled for some run-down farm sheds on the banks of Killary Harbour. 1981–Present Little Killary Adventure Centre opened its doors in 1981, growing to become a market leader in the field of adventure holidays. The Youngs’ children—Ciara, Shane, and Kim—were all born in Killary, and growing up in Connemara was an adventure for them all. Connemara Adventure Tours (then Killary Tours) was also created in the 1980s and filled a need for inbound Irish adventure tours, both for the hardy and the seekers of ‘soft’ adventure.
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businesses. A brand-new budget accommodation centre, renamed Killary Adventure Centre, was also opened for business. Nestled in the hills, with a spectacular view over Killary Harbour and Inishturk Island, it is surrounded by the most remarkable scenery. In addition to expanding his business, Jamie has found time for other challenges over the years. He led the first Irish Sea Kayak Expedition to circumnavigate Cape Horn in South America in 1989, and he was a team member of the South Aris expedition in 1997, which re-enacted Ernest Shackleton’s famous adventure in the Antarctic. In 2003, Jamie and one other attempted to traverse from the South Pole to Patriot Hills by kite buggy, and in 2012, he helped to organise and then participated in the Round Rockall Sailing Race from the Port of Galway to Rockall islet in the North Atlantic and back. He sailed the Killary Flyer singlehandedly and did his region proud once more. On 14 June 2013, with a crew of nine others that included his son, Shane, and several kayakers, climbers, and filmmakers, Jamie set off on another highly successful expedition to Greenland for approximately ten weeks.
Killary Adventure Company’s goal is to make outdoor adventure accessible to all and to encourage everyone to push the boundaries of his or her experience in western Ireland.
With two of the Youngs’ three children now working within Killary Adventure Company, its journey from 1981 to today has been an exciting one. The business has survived three recessions, has innovated and diversified into other sectors of the adventure market, and is leading the charge in Ireland with its strong emphasis on green energy and its impact on the surrounding environment in the rural community. The Young family members not only work in the adventure industry but also live and breathe adventure—it’s in their DNA!
Killary Adventure Company Located in the heart of Connemara, the main base of the adventure company sits overlooking the Killary Fjord, which is one of the Wild Atlantic Way’s signature points. Killary Adventure Company’s goal is to make outdoor adventure accessible to all and to encourage everyone to push the boundaries of his or her experience in western Ireland. With both day activities and accommodations available, adventurers can come for the morning or stay for the week.
Killary Adventure Company offers a selection of over twenty adventure activities on water and land. Kayak along the shores of the fjord and take in the history of the Great Famine that is visible there. Or take a fjord discovery trip on our seven-and-a-half-metre speedboat and visit the mussel farms that populate the sheltered waters, stopping by a working mussel boat to learn how the mussels are grown—and even pick some for lunch! Then it’s on to the Killary sheep farm to meet Tom, who will show visitors how to herd sheep with sheepdogs, cut fresh turf from the land, and maybe even feed a lamb. The trip ends with a steaming pot of Killary mussels at the adventure company’s Roof Top Café. ConnemaraLife.ie
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Environmental Impact Killary Adventure Company was founded with strong environmental desires and goals. This green policy has been running through the business since its inception, although it has increased over recent years as time and technology have allowed the business to move it forward. The company installed a biomass burner to heat the Killary Adventure Centre with wood rather than gas or oil. This wood is sourced from a local forest less than five kilometres away. The centre also uses a drying room (for wet clothes, shoes, et cetera) to run off excess heat from the biomass boiler. There is a wind turbine on-site, which produces some of the electricity used within the centre. The company is currently seeking planning permission for a second one.
In 2000, Killary installed a reed bed for the outflow from the sewage system in order to deal with the waste from its ecologically aware building; the reed bed uses natural stone faces and grass roofing to help it disappear into the landscape. A large effort has been made to separate recycling waste from general waste, resulting in a three-to-one ratio of recycling to general waste. A county council recycling centre is also located on the Killary Adventure Company premises. Plans to reduce energy usage across the company’s buildings are under way, including a recent installation of passive infrared (PIR) sensors to reduce electricity consumption; a reduction in energy usage by 40 per cent has been seen since installing the sensors. The company is in the process of replacing all bulbs and light fittings in the centre with more energy efficient LEDs. In 2015, Killary Adventure Company purchased an electric buggy (fondly known as the Postman Pat van) for moving between the property’s accommodations and activity sites. The company remains proud to serve Connemara visitors and locals while keeping the region’s natural beauty and environment intact. 24
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Climbing, abseiling, and the Giant Swing on the purpose-built tower with a new Burma Bridge and SkyFall activity will be launching at Killary Adventure Company in the summer of 2016! Connemara Adventure Tours Connemara Adventure Tours has been welcoming visitors for over thirty years with great pride and delight. There is no corner of this enchanting part of western Ireland that the tour guides do not know. Activities include guided and self-guided walking and cycling tours of Connemara. Connemara Adventure Tours offers personal service to take care of the details, which provides visitors the freedom to explore and discover. All levels of adventure in Connemara are available, from a gentle meandering cycle through sheltered valleys to a day spent summiting a rugged peak overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. Guests are guaranteed the best of equipment, accommodations, practical support, and local knowledge that will ensure a smooth and hassle-free holiday. Bask in soft rain, green mists, and breathtaking views with friends and family, or enjoy time by yourself as you are immersed in culture, history, and tradition—but most of all, you will be welcomed with warmth and limitless hospitality.
Killary Gaelforce Never a man to stand still and always with adventure in mind, Jamie developed the concept of the Gaelforce West Adventure Race in 2006. The race ran for the first time in August that year, in association with Fáilte Ireland. Since then, it has seen nearly twenty thousand competitors take to the Galway and Mayo hills to complete the sixtyfive-kilometre course. Killary Gaelforce was established in 2009 and has grown to become the premier organiser of unsupported adventure challenges in Ireland. It offers iconic events, breathtaking scenery, and incredible personal journeys.The 2016 calendar includes eleven events taking place, with plans afoot for more! Killary Gaelforce offers everything from a ten-kilometre trail run to a sixty-five-kilometre adventure race, an open-water swim, obstacle races, and even a cyclosportive and triathlon.
www.ConnemaraAdventureTours.com
+353 (0)95 21039 | Lower Market Street, Clifden, Co. Galway | www.Stanleys.ie Open Monday–Saturday 10am–6pm | Sundays seasonally 11am–5pm Find us on Facebook at Stanleys Clifden!
IRELANDS EYE
BARBOUR
Established in 1824, Stanleys Clifden has evolved as a shop offering a wide range of products and services to its customers. The sixth-generation family business is a firm part of the Clifden community, stocking a vast array of high-quality casual clothing, outdoor clothing, Irish tweed jackets, knitwear, caps, scarves, rugs and fishing tackle, along with a large footwear selection. You’re spoilt for choice! Stanleys prides itself in providing high-quality fashion labels including: Magee, Barbour, Saint James and Irelands Eye. If you’re visiting Connemara, Stanleys Clifden is a must-stop shopping destination.
CARRAIG DONN
OTHER LABELS STOCKED: MAGEE, FOXFORD, JOHN HANLEY, DONEGAL STUDIO, WESTEND KNITWEAR. FOOTWEAR: DUBARRY BOOTS, ECCO, LEGERO, SKETCHERS, TOMS, HUNTER BOOTS, CONVERSE, VANS, CROCS, FIT-FLOPS. OUTDOORS: MERREL, KEEN, COLUMBIA, BERGHANS, SALOMON, HELLY HANSEN, TILLEY, PARAMO, AIGLE, HAN WAG, LADIES/MENSWEAR: BUGATTI, PURE, AMOR LUX, JOULES, NOBLE WILDE
Enchantment An
Ballynahinch Castle and Christian Siriano Fashions Inspire the Feminine Hunter
Jordan Staggs PHOTOGRAPHY BY Alex Hutchinson BY
Classical music filters through the elegant dining room as hairstylist Louise Jordan adjusts the soft golden curls of model Clara McSweeney. ‘This absolutely never happens,’ remarks photographer Alex Hutchinson. Everyone—the hotel staff at Ballynahinch Castle, videographer Barry Ryan, and the hair and make-up team from Bellissimo Galway salon—has commented on the incredibly rare sunny weather. It’s almost as if, after months of harsh winter rains, Ireland cleared its skies just for this. ‘Is this song from a Disney movie?’ Hutchinson asks with a grin as everyone deliberates. ‘I’m surprised I don’t know—I’m such a Disney fan,’ says McSweeney, looking every bit the part of a princess in a feathered calf-length gown and nude pumps by renowned American fashion designer Christian Siriano. Ryan mentions Beauty and the Beast, a fitting story for the day’s theme, as the photo shoot was inspired by the ‘feminine hunter’. The soft feathers and silk gowns by Siriano, winner of the fourth season of Project Runway and a member of the Council of Fashion Designers of America, flow seamlessly into the rustic beauty of the castle hotel.
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On Clara: Christian Siriano gown, Resort 2015 collection; Surell Accessories fox fur stole and bubble hat in black by Surell Accessories On Faye: Christian Siriano blush silk chiffon pleated gown; gloves and fox fur cuffs and bubble hat in crystal by Surell Accessories; necklace available at Destin Jewelers
Sunlight glimmers off the calmly flowing Owenmore River below the castle and filters beautifully through the panoramic windows that span the length of the dining rooms. Guests enjoy a quiet morning breakfast, occasionally peeking curiously into the adjoining space where Hutchinson and his crew are working. They are taking advantage of the beautiful natural light, while the Bellissimo team prepare model Faye Dinsmore for a shot outside on the castle grounds.
A F airy-Tale Landscape
Ballynahinch Castle, a shining diamond tucked away in the rugged yet enchanting wilderness of Connemara, is a four-star luxury hotel boasting forty-eight charming guest rooms, a friendly and knowledgeable staff, endless scenic views, and a cornucopia of on-site and nearby activities that include hiking and walking, biking, fly fishing, tennis, clay and woodcock shooting, horseback riding, and even a boat trip to a local deserted island. The estate takes its name from the Gaeilge Baile na hInse, meaning ‘dwelling on the island’, which refers to the grounds’ original sixteenth-century O’Flaherty Castle, whose ruins sit on an island in Ballynahinch Lake to the north. The Martin family of Galway inherited the 250,000 acres of land occupied by the O’Flahertys when the feudal system was disbanded and began construction on Ballynahinch Castle in the 1750s. A member of the family, Richard ‘Humanity Dick’ Martin, who was a member of parliament for Galway and a staunch animal rights activist (as well as an accomplished duellist), introduced the first legislation affording animals rights in Ireland and also founded the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Looking carefully upon entering the castle, one can see a placard in his honour just to the left of the front door. Christian Siriano blush and ivory feather embroidered chiffon and organza dress and shoes; 18ct yellow gold and multi-stone ring, Ipanema collection by Nanis Right: Ballynahinch Castle nestled between the Owenmore River and the mountains of Connemara. Photo courtesy of Ballynahinch Castle
was affectionately known, was well regarded by the castle staff, and his name is emblazoned opposite Humanity Dick’s at the castle’s main entrance. Guests can also raise a glass to these former proprietors as they enjoy casual dining and drinks in the cosy Ranji Room, just past the Fisherman’s Pub on the castle’s west side. Ballynahinch Castle began welcoming visitors from the world over after becoming a hotel in 1946, and although it has changed ownership a few times since and has recently undergone some extensive renovations under the care of passionate owners Catherine and Denis O’Brien, its hospitality and charm have never failed. ‘There is something incredibly charming and relaxing about walking the riverbank, watching the water swirl and eddy. Truly, catching a fish is a bonus,’ says Ballynahinch Castle’s general manager of nineteen
When the Martins fled from debt collectors in the 1870s, the land once again changed ownership, first to the Berridge family of Ireland and then into the hands of royalty, as would befit such a castle. The Indian Prince Ranjitsinhji, the Maharaja of Nawanagar, a world-class cricketer who played for England, acquired Ballynahinch and spent the fishing season—from February through September—at the castle every year until his death in 1933. Ranji, as he
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years, Patrick O’Flaherty, who enjoys walking the grounds and taking advantage of the superb fly fishing for wild Atlantic salmon, sea trout, and wild brown trout when he’s able to steal a few hours away from running the busy hotel and its amenities. O’Flaherty resides on the grounds with his wife, Cliodhna Prendergast—an accomplished chef, food blogger, and food photographer also featured in this issue— and their children, Jake, Iseult, and Milo. In addition to the fishing season, which is most active from April on for trout and June on for salmon, castle guests may enjoy activities year-round. Shooting lessons with instructor Shane Bisgood, who studied at the Holland & Holland Shooting Grounds near London, is an adventurous pastime for those who wish to test their marksmanship. Ballynahinch also charters a boat from nearby Roundstone, captained by one of the castle’s team members, John O’Sullivan. The three-hour trip takes passengers across the bay to the idyllic deserted island of Inishlacken, where they may stop for photographs and take in the briny fresh air before continuing on to visit a lobster fishery. On the way, sights include grey seals, various sea birds, and, of course, Connemara’s iconic stone walls and lush greenery, which hark back to a time lost in other
parts of the world but never forgotten in Ireland’s west. ‘It truly is a magical trip’, O’Flaherty assures, ‘and guests often return with lobster for dinner.’ The Owenmore Restaurant is perhaps the jewel in the crown that is Ballynahinch Castle—or it at least shares that title with the breathtaking landscape surrounding it and the river for which it was named. Its windows span the back of the castle, overlooking the river and surrounding forests, and its fare is fresh, local, and nothing short of divine. Head chef Ultan Cooke and his team strive to delight guests with every meal, from spectacular gourmet options in the Owenmore dining room to the traditional selections in the Fisherman’s Pub. A breakfast buffet and hot selections from the kitchen are also available each morning in the Owenmore room, and one should not miss the chance to sit by the windows and sip tea or coffee as the wilderness of Ballynahinch awakens. Indeed, with a full range of on-site activities at Ballynahinch Castle and a robust calendar of festivals, music, theatre, and athletic events throughout the year in Connemara, it is never the wrong time to visit Ireland’s west.
Head chef Ultan Cooke and his team strive to delight guests with every meal from A Magical Scene spectacular gourmet options in the Owenmore dining room.
‘Can you tilt your head that way, please?’ Siriano asks model Faye Dinsmore as she poses against a vine-strewn wall on the castle grounds. He snaps a quick iPhone photo of her with her fellow princess for the day, McSweeney. Meanwhile, Hutchinson, an accomplished young photographer based in Dublin whose portfolio includes shooting for magazines and other publications around the world, is setting up his next shot with the help of staff members from Connemara Equestrian Escapes. Dinsmore stands regally, holding the leads of two dappled spaniels, Maggie and Cindy, as McSweeney shoulders a hunting rifle. Elegant pieces from Destin Jewelers in Florida, along with chic fur hats, stoles, and cuffs by Surell Accessories perfectly complement Siriano’s gowns, evoking a vibe of Doctor Zhivago with a couture edge—the creative vision of Connemara Life and VIE magazine publisher, Lisa Burwell. ‘I think the skirt’s going to lay really nicely here,’ Siriano remarks as he adjusts McSweeney’s feathered ballroom-style skirt while she sits tall on horseback. He stands by attentively, jumping in occasionally to adjust his creations and offer encouragement and praise to the models. ‘I’ve been on a lot of photo shoots, and people always think I’m the assistant’, the thirty-year-old designer jokes, ‘until I come barrelling through and change everything.’
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Christian Siriano ivory feathered fringe cape gown; 18ct yellow gold and baroque freshwater pearl earrings by Yvel Left: Dining with a view in the Owenmore Restaurant. Photo courtesy of Ballynahinch Castle
That’s how he works—sitting back on the sidelines and observing until it’s time to jump in and make magic happen for Hutchinson’s camera, working seamlessly along with the whole magazine crew and the staff of Ballynahinch and Connemara Equestrian Escapes. It’s the same way Siriano operates his business endeavours, from designing to marketing and creative collaborations with national American brands such as Payless, Lane Bryant, and Bed Bath & Beyond; he is personally involved and has the final word in how his own brand will be perceived. His gowns were featured on the cover of VIE in November 2015, worn by Tony Award–winning actress and performer Kristin Chenoweth and other prominent members of the theatre and classical music scenes in New York City. It was after this shoot that collaborations began to bring Siriano and his designs to Ireland for the fairy-tale inspired castle photo shoot.
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Sheer long-sleeve knit top and ivory feathered fringe ball gown by Christian Siriano On Faye, left: See previous page On Clara, left: Christian Siriano ivory open-weave knit halter top and feather embroidered chiffon and organza evening skirt; 18ct yellow gold and baroque freshwater pearl drop necklace by Yvel; fox fur cuffs in snow and coyote stole in natural by Surell Accessories
Photo Details
Below: Models Faye Dinsmore and Clara McSweeney with designer Christian Siriano at Ballynahinch Castle entrance
The region abounds with a refreshing air of unpretentious authenticity. Siriano’s fiancé, musician Brad Walsh, takes candid shots behind the scenes and awaits his turn to climb into the saddle, shooting short video clips throughout the grounds to use in a music video for his new single, ‘Creases’, which debuted in late March 2016 along with his six-track EP titled Secondary. ‘There was a quiet buzz about the hotel when the VIE/Connemara Life team arrived,’ O’Flaherty says. ‘The staff were thrilled to watch the shoot, see the models show off the beautiful Christian Siriano creations. In particular, though, everybody was impressed with how down-to-earth and unpretentious the team were—Alex on camera and models Clara and Faye were all a pleasure to work with.’ ConnemaraLife.ie
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The Ballynahinch staff were accommodating to the utmost degree, and one of their own was even recruited as a background male model—Tarek Biddulph, who works in the castle and resides in the nearby town of Clifden. Meanwhile, Clifden resident Aimee Callan was primped for a few shots in Siriano’s gowns as well. Burwell and her publishing team at The Idea Boutique—who held a grand opening celebration for their Clifden international branch office at Ballynahinch Castle in August 2014—have a tradition of recruiting local talent to join in on photo shoots, both in Ireland and the United States. Biddulph donned waders and wellies and took up a net and a fly fishing rod for a shot out on the Owenmore. ‘I think that’s great’, Siriano says, ‘because it looks natural—it makes it more authentic.’
An Everlasting Love
Everything in Connemara seems to echo Siriano’s sentiment; the region abounds with a refreshing air of unpretentious authenticity. Its natural beauty and rural Irish culture, which is anchored in charm and tradition but also embraces the changing modern world and its many technological and social advancements, are captivating to visitors, including Siriano, Walsh, and the American team from VIE magazine. (This issue of Connemara Life is to be inserted into the US publication’s November/December 2016 Sophisticate issue.) It was the love of Connemara, its people, and its culture that brought Lisa and Gerald Burwell to open the international branch of The Idea Boutique in Clifden, near Lisa’s extended family home in Tullycross, in 2014. Although the company’s headquarters is located along a very different coastline—on the Gulf of Mexico in north-west Florida—the Wild Atlantic Way has stolen the hearts of its owners and staff, and they aim to share the area’s wonders with the world via Connemara Life and other marketing endeavours in both Ireland and the United States.
On Faye: Christian Siriano ivory open-weave knit halter top and feather embroidered chiffon and organza evening skirt On Aimee, right: Christian Siriano blush and ivory feather embroidered chiffon and organza dress and shoes; Paige Novick sterling silver/18ct open cage cuff with crystal detail
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INISHBOFIN ISLAND HOSTEL
Relax and enjoy the slow pace of island life... Small dorms Private rooms Family rooms 2-6 beds Winter garden ‘The poet Michael Cody refers to Connemara as “a state of light,”’ O’Flaherty says. ‘I think this is a wonderful way to convey the magic of this part of Ireland. The landscape is in part dramatic, in part gentle. It can be severe or beguiling, and this constant change of character is all because of the light. Situated as we are on the Atlantic coast, the weather patterns are in constant flux, and the effect on the landscape of shadows and light is magnificent. ‘The people of Connemara are open, curious, and yet private,’ he continues. ‘There is a readiness to accept people into the community, which is sometimes lacking in rural life. There is a sense of duty to support and help your neighbour that I believe comes from living in what is a beautiful but harsh landscape. This, coupled with the fact that a great many Connemara families came from the islands, I think gives a strong sense of community. I know I could not wish for better neighbours.’ There are many things to love about Connemara, and one simply cannot discover them all in one visit. It seems as though something more beautiful and exciting lies on every winding path, around every bend in the road, and over every rolling hill. This landscape of light and shadows is best discovered for oneself, and Ballynahinch Castle hotel’s smiling staff and incomparable setting are dedicated to helping guests discover the magic of western Ireland for years to come.
www.Ballynahinch-Castle.com
Large dining area Garden with picnic area Camping area Laundry facilities OPEN EASTER TO OCTOBER www.inishbofin-hostel.ie info@inishbofin-hostel.ie +353 95 45855
Eggs B REA KIN G
FOOD AND FAMILY IN WESTERN IRELAND Story and photography by
CLIODHNA PRENDERGAST
I grew up at the foot of a mountain on the shores of the Atlantic in a place called Cashel in Connemara. Although I was born in Dingle in County Kerry, I am a Connemara girl through and through. Shortly after my fifth birthday, my family bought a country house hotel by the sea in Connemara, and so we moved up the western coast to start our new life in County Galway. My parents worked hard at the hotel, a family business that demanded all their attention. As a result, during the busy season and the summer holidays, my siblings and I were left to entertain ourselves. To fill our days, we climbed the hills behind the hotel, rummaged along the seashore, and fished in the lakes and rivers for the then-abundant sea trout. For me, however, the day always started and ended in the heart of the hotel: the kitchen. I loved the energy there, the chatting and the madness of the race to be ready for dinner. After a couple of years, when I was about seven, a new cook joined us, and she was not willing to allow me in the kitchen if I was not being useful. So, I started my education; she taught me how to make ice cream for the guests. My father would always stop and chat with everyone in the dining room during dinner, and if he found that they were having ice cream for dessert, he would proudly announce ‘my seven-year-old daughter made that.’ He would also wheel me out before dinner to eat oysters with the guests; it was sort of his party trick, and I was willing! As my interest grew, another chef brought me out to pick nettles for a spring nettle soup, and just like that, my lifelong adventure in foraging began. I loved it. I thought that gathering and eating wild food was the coolest way to spend a day. When my daughter asked me the other day what my childhood was like, that’s what I thought of: picking wild mushrooms, peas from the garden (at that time, we had a big kitchen garden) and berries from the hedgerows. This was partially out of boredom due to living in the wild, rural west of Ireland. ConnemaraLife.ie
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oraging might have just remained an idle pastime, but living in the family hotel with chefs nearby led me to create something that tasted amazing, and that just pulled it all together and caused me to go for it full throttle. I was determined not to follow in my parents’ footsteps by running the hotel because I figured it was far too much hard work. So, I went on to study arts at University College Cork (now National University of Ireland, Cork). I used to make tarts and sell them to cafes for pocket money, and I realized that I had much more interest in the tarts than I did in the arts. As a result, I left college and went to Dublin to take up a position as a pastry chef at Jacob’s Ladder Restaurant, which was owned by Adrian Roche, a chef who had spent many years working at my parents’ hotel. I continued working in restaurants and hotel kitchens, and after spending a season at Newport House in County Mayo, I decided to go to cookery school at Ballymaloe. I absolutely loved it; the focus on organic food and on supporting local farmers really struck a chord with me. It was such a comfortable fit with my own ethos and upbringing.
I have a deep-seated belief that children should be introduced to cooking at an early age. This is not just so that they can learn to cook (which is great) but more importantly, it gives them a confident and healthy outlook on life.
Cookery school also gave me confidence in my skills and helped me appreciate how much I had learned. I saw with clarity the value of my upbringing and my background in food.
When I graduated from Ballymaloe, I took the helm in the kitchen of the Delphi Lodge in Connemara, where I spent eleven glorious years as head chef with the lodge’s inspirational owner, Peter Mantle. I had completely free rein in the kitchen and the larder. Delphi is a salmon-fishing lodge, so wild salmon was brought into the kitchen very frequently; the woods were also covered in wild garlic and wild mushrooms. We had fresh fish from the coast, mussels from Killary Bay, woodcock shooting in the winter, free-range eggs, … The lodge’s kitchen was just like the kitchen I had grown up in, but now I was the chef. It was a magical time for me, and I developed as a chef and found my own way. Just before going to Delphi, I had met my husband, Patrick, who was a big part of the reason I returned home to Connemara. Patrick manages Ballynahinch Castle Hotel and Estate, so I fell right back into the arms of the hotel business. I actually somewhat enjoy that life even though I’d spent years trying to scramble out of it. After our third child, Milo, was born, I realized that a full-time kitchen job (with all its late nights) was not an ideal way to raise my family, so I left Delphi. I wanted to continue working in some way while still being close to the children. I have a deep-seated belief, probably as a result of my own childhood, that children should be introduced to cooking at an early age. This is not just so that they can learn to cook (which is great) but more importantly, it gives them a confident and healthy outlook on life. They get a better appreciation of how the planet works and of the role that they have to play.
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I enjoy every second of these workshops; we take the participants foraging and often do some hands-on cookery with them before teaching the photography and food styling. I started filming the online cookery programme Breaking Eggs with my children, Jake, Iseult and Milo, as a way to encourage parents to involve their children in every aspect of food— growing, gathering, and cooking— from an early age.
at Farmette.ie). Born out of our shared love of food and photography, Lens and Larder brings world-class photographers and food stylists to extraordinary places in Ireland to teach the arts of food photography and visual storytelling during three- and four-day workshops.
For the programme, we examine the sources of our food by going to a farm, visiting a cheese maker, picking mushrooms in the woods, fishing, going to markets, and so on. We then bring that food back to cook it in the kitchen of our family home. We have found such great pleasure in meeting all the food producers and listening to their passion-filled stories. The kids are pretty amazing, and they have a fantastic understanding of food and of the people who grow, gather, and produce it.
This is an amalgamation of everything I love: food, photography, people, and creativity. I enjoy every second of these workshops; we take the participants foraging and often do some hands-on cookery with them before teaching the photography and food styling. Each course is unique because of the different locations, seasons, and instructors. We keep the numbers small so that we can offer one-on-one attention and learning, which also means that many new friendships are forged at the workshops as the participants spend time with people who share their passions.
Over the past year and a half, I also started a workshop called Lens and Larder with my good friend Imen McDonnell (find her blog, Farmette,
RECIPES Connemara influences my cooking in ways that I’m not sure I can explain properly. The flavours from this place are what make me tick. Therefore, I’d like to share some recipes that reflect Connemara and its produce. The first is a dish made with mussels and clams, which can both be found all over our coast, where they are fresh and delicious. We often cook them using a little gas burner while on the beach because they taste even better there! For this recipe, I have used fresh wild garlic and an Irish chorizo made by Fingal Ferguson of Gubbeen in County Cork. If you
cannot find wild garlic, you can use ordinary cloves of garlic and some nice, fresh flat-leaf parsley. For the second dish, I have used gorse, which is a very prickly, yellowflowering shrub; it grows in great profusion around Connemara and can be found all over the roadsides and hills. You need heavy-duty gardening gloves to pick it, but the amazing fresh flavour, which is like green coconut, is worth it. It is also known as broom or furze, and it may grow in an area near you; if not, you can substitute coconut milk for cow’s milk in this recipe to achieve a similar flavour. ConnemaraLife.ie
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RECIPES
MUSSELS AND CLAMS
with Wild Garlic and Irish Chorizo
Serves 2 to 4
Ingredients » 2 pounds (1 kilogram) of mussels, cleaned and debearded » 2 pounds (1 kilogram) of clams, cleansed of sand » 1 small onion, chopped finely » 1 large handful of wild garlic, roughly chopped (or 2 cloves of garlic, chopped, and a handful of flat-leaf parsley, chopped)
Add the wild garlic and chorizo and stir, making sure all the mussels and clams get tossed around by moving the ones on the bottom to the top. Cover the pot for 1 minute to allow the mussels and clams to steam, and then mix thoroughly (if using fresh parsley instead of wild garlic, add it now). Cover the pot again.
» 1 cup (250 millilitres) white wine » 1 cup (60 grams) chorizo, sliced
It should take 5 more minutes for most of the shellfish to open.
» Olive or vegetable oil
Put a large pot on a medium heat with a little oil and add the onion to soften (if using regular garlic, add it now as well). Turn the heat up and add the mussels, clams, and white wine; stir.
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Remove the pot from the heat. At this point, if any rogue mussels or clams are unopened, discard them. Serve immediately with some brown bread to mop up the delicious juice.
Gorse and Yoghurt
PANNA COTTA
Makes 6
Ingredients » 2 large handfuls gorse petals » 1 cup full-fat milk » 1 cup cream » 2 1/2 cups natural yoghurt
Grease six 6-ounce dariole moulds or ramekins liberally with sunflower oil and sprinkle 3 or 4 gorse petals at the bottom of each mould. Strain the milk mixture into a bowl, gently squeezing the milk from the gorse petals through the sieve; discard the petals.
» 1/2 cup caster sugar » 3 teaspoons powdered gelatine » 4 tablespoons cold water
Put the milk and cream in a pot with the sugar and bring to a simmer, stirring until the sugar is dissolved. Remove the pot from the heat and add the gorse petals, saving a few for decorating later.
Take a small amount of milk (about two tablespoons) and mix it into the clear gelatine. Then add that gelatine mix back into the large bowl of milk and whisk thoroughly. Now add the natural yoghurt and whisk until it is combined and smooth. Divide the mixture between the six moulds and refrigerate for 3–4 hours until set.
Stir the petals into the milk and set aside to cool completely. While the milk mixture cools, in a heatproof bowl, mix the gelatine with the cold water. Set the bowl over a pot of simmering water until the gelatine has melted and is clear. (You can also do this in the microwave on low-power mode.)
To serve, turn the mould upside down and run it under warm water for a few seconds; then place the mould upside down on a plate. It may need a little shake, but the panna cotta will slide out easily as you lift the mould. Scatter a few fresh gorse petals on top and on the plate.
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A T R A D I T I O N O F A R T A N D E D U C AT I O N
Clifden Arts Festival By Breandan O’Scanaill Photography courtesy of Clifden Arts Festival
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The Clifden Arts Festival will shortly be celebrating its fortieth birthday, and it has been getting bigger and better each year. The 2016 festival, which runs from 15 to 25 September, is shaping up to be another cracking year! As the scope of the festival has expanded over the years, so has its attendance and value to the local economy. More and more visitors from around Ireland and abroad return each year and have the chance to speak with the artists and others involved in the events. The relatively small and intimate setting is one of the special features of the Clifden Arts Festival, and although it has grown over the decades, the ethos and guiding principles behind it have remained the same. Along with good-quality art, music, theatre, comedy, and literature in a relaxed setting, it is the involvement of the local schools which helps define the festival. The participation of dozens of local volunteers and the dedication of the Clifden Arts Festival committee and its director, Brendan Flynn, ensure that quality always takes centre stage. As we look forward to the 2016 Clifden Arts Festival, it seems a good time to step back and look at its origins and the changes over the years. It was in 1977 that Flynn proposed the idea of encouraging the arts in the newly opened Clifden Community School. He has always had a passion for incorporating the arts in the school curriculum, and with the support of the principal and teachers, the first Arts Week took place with a number of readings, lectures, and workshops for the school’s students. The programme for this week fitted onto one page.
Connemara Leisure Centre. Pubs and cafes add to this mix, and music can be heard on the street throughout the week. Visitors may meet the poets and writers during the festival, and one can drop into a shop, pub, or even the bookies and find great literature. The Clifden Library also acts as a host for exhibitions, readings, and concerts. One of the biggest successes over the festival’s thirtynine years has been the development of the Arts Trail, which uses shop windows as exhibition spaces for paintings, photographs, and sculpture, transforming the whole town into an art gallery. It is lovely to watch people going from window to window and commenting on the works on display. On top of that, galleries pop up in shops, old buildings, and hotels. You can find art in the most surprising places! As the Clifden Arts Festival has grown, bodies such as the Arts Council and the Irish Museum of Modern Art have allowed art exhibitions to travel to it, and the event has also been selected by corporate and private collectors as an ideal choice to show their collections. This has ensured that top-notch works of art are available to a wider audience in the far west of Ireland. The emphasis on each year’s poster and programme has also increased over the years. The posters are works of art in themselves and attract a lot of attention
Right from the start, a great relationship grew between the school and a host of wonderful artists and writers, such as John Behan, Seamus Heaney, Christy Moore, and President Michael D. Higgins, to name but a few. As the Arts Week began to grow, the wider Clifden community became involved in the school-based festival, and the event moved into the town and surroundings. It was at this stage that the true Clifden Arts Festival was born. From these humble beginnings, a great educational and cultural event developed, and Clifden Arts Festival’s local, national, and international reputation for diversity and quality has grown year on year. The festival is spread throughout town at a variety of venues, which range from the intimate Station House Theatre, the acoustically brilliant Christ Church, and the atmospheric Saint Joseph’s Church, to the functional and ideal venues of the Clifden Town Hall and the West ConnemaraLife.ie
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The whole event is a bit like Rio meets Clifden—lights, music, flares, colourful floats, kids and adults in crazy costumes, and, above them all, the talented Fidget Feet dangling from a crane and performing ballet in the air. from locals and visitors alike. The posters and programmes are eagerly awaited each year, and one of the joys of getting your hands on the programme is marking off all the things you would like to attend over the ten-day event. There is normally a clash of interests, but whatever you choose to see, you are sure to enjoy it. Sometimes those exhibits or events you were not sure about turn out to be the most interesting! The educational aspect of the Clifden Arts Festival has always been central, originating with the Clifden Community School and then the Scoil Mhuire National School coming on board. Now fourteen
schools from the area take part in various aspects of the event, including hosting visiting poets, musicians, or theatre troupes. Other activities include lantern making, stilt walking, drumming, and dance workshops, all in preparation for an amazing parade held on the final Saturday evening. The Grand Parade takes place around the town of Clifden and is brilliantly choreographed by LUXe Processional Spectacle and Landscape Theatre and the wonderful Fidget Feet Aerial Dance Theatre. Both groups arrive in Connemara in advance of the festival and begin training the students for various roles they will play in the parade. They have built up a body of students who take part year and after year. Those who have finished school often return to volunteer with the many men and women from the area who help push, pull, or carry various parts of the parade. The whole event is a bit like Rio meets Clifden—lights, music, flares, colourful floats, kids and adults in crazy costumes, and, above them all, the talented Fidget Feet dangling from a crane and performing ballet in the air. Then, just as you think the spectacle has ended, the skies are lit up with a fireworks display that will take your breath away. The festival’s energy is infectious; it gets into your blood and always becomes the talk of the town. Here’s to this year’s festival: to all the committee working behind the scenes, the marvellous funders who are often overlooked, the artists, and the performers. But most of all, here’s to the people of Clifden and Connemara, who have taken the tradition of this event to heart and who are the true ambassadors for the Clifden Arts Festival. www.ClifdenArtsFestival.ie
Murray’s Doonmore Hotel THE MOST WESTERLY ISLAND HOTEL IN IRELAND
Award-winning Cliff-Top Hotel on the Beautiful West Coast Island of Inishbofin Number 1 hotel on TripAdvisor in Connacht in 2016 Fantastic home cooking and baking with delicious seafood dishes fresh from the Atlantic. Live music sessions and a real open fire in our cosy bar. Activities available: horse riding, dinghy sailing, scuba diving, swimming, snorkeling, kayaking, hiking, biking, bird-watching, sea safaris, guided walks or just relaxing by the fire with a good book.
www.DoonmoreHotel.com
+353 95 45804
Facebook: Murray’s Inishbofin Doonmore Hotel
TO THE END OF THE LINE THE ROADS AND RAILS TO CONNEMARA
The Clifden to Galway Railway Line 1895–1935 By PK Joyce
The original trail route from Clifden to Galway meanders through some of the most spectacular scenery western Ireland has to offer, but the polarising isolation of Connemara’s many lakes, rivers, and mountain ranges spurred the need to build the original railway track in 1891. With an ever-growing population, the need for better transport infrastructure to service the region became a priority. In 1885 a public meeting in Galway town agreed that a railway would have a major impact on the economy and well-being of Connemara’s inhabitants. The build itself would guarantee a substantial jobs windfall for the duration of construction, and the export potential from the area’s fisheries would have major economic benefits for impoverished coastal fishermen. Local agricultural and livestock production
and trade could be greatly enhanced with access to larger markets. A number of initiatives to build a rail line fell through before the Midland Great Western Railway (MGWR) won the contract to build and run the service in 1889. Construction of the line began in early 1891 and eventually saw a nearly seventy-eight-kilometre track laid between Galway and Clifden through the villages of Moycullen, Ross, Oughterard, Maam Cross, Recess, and Ballynahinch. The first official train journey took place on 1 January 1895 when specially invited guests and dignitaries took the short journey between Galway and Oughterard. Clifden first saw the arrival of a train from Galway on 1 July 1895. However, in the following decades—despite
IN 1885 A PUBLIC MEETING IN GALWAY TOWN AGREED THAT A RAILWAY WOULD HAVE A MAJOR IMPACT ON THE ECONOMY AND WELL-BEING OF CONNEMARA’S INHABITANTS. major investment by the MGWR—the railway failed to become profitable. The company attempted to concentrate on tourism as a major source of income for the line, but a change in governing policy and resulting financial loss forced the Clifden Station to close on 27 April 1935 after the last train departed. ConnemaraLife.ie
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Clifden Station House By Treena and John Sweeney
‘Closed to steam in 1935 … Opened to discerning guests in 1998!’ With the closure of the rail line in 1935, public road transport took over the vital role of delivering Connemara’s goods and services. The land through which the line passed was repurposed by locals for farming, while the steel tracks were lifted and sold as scrap metal. Rumour has it that the steel was used in the making of munitions used in World War II. The closing of the railway left the old station buildings to be repurposed, and they are now home to some of Clifden’s most prominent businesses. The area has been revitalized for both locals and tourists to enjoy. The railway buildings and site became home to Millars Connemara tweed mills, once the largest employer in the area. Millars produced their world-famous tweed there until the mill ceased manufacturing in the mid 1990s. In 1998, local businessman John Sweeney saw potential in the unused former Clifden Station buildings. In the following years, he undertook and completed a huge development and restoration project, which included the establishment of one of the area’s most popular accommodations, the Clifden Station House Hotel. Clifden Station House, now nearing its twentieth birthday, has evolved as a major tourist destination in the west of Ireland. The old stationmaster’s house is now home to a bar and restaurant specialising in quality cuisine made from the freshest local ingredients. The hotel features a railway theme and incorporates many of the station’s original features, including the old railway platform. It makes for the perfect spot to enjoy your morning coffee. The Station House Hotel, the first hotel to be built in Clifden in thirty years, also features a new structure built in the style of a traditional railway utility building. It houses an eighteenmetre heated swimming pool, sauna, steam room, Jacuzzi, and gym, as well as the Renew Spa by Rose Greene. The property earned a White Flag Award for Spa and Leisure for 2010–2011. The old engine house is now a museum with a particular emphasis on Clifden’s history. 46
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THE HOTEL FEATURES A RAILWAY THEME AND INCORPORATES MANY OF THE STATION’S ORIGINAL FEATURES, INCLUDING THE OLD RAILWAY PLATFORM. Exhibits detail the area’s connections with the development of the Marconi wireless radio, pioneering pilots Alcock and Brown’s transatlantic flight, Clifden founder John D’Arcy, and the majestic and lovable Connemara pony.
The Station House courtyard is a vibrant shopping and dining destination with fabulous boutiques including Ohh! By Gum, Design Platform, Millars Connemara, Hedz Hair Salon, and Steam Coffee House.
The ‘Goods Store’, one of a number of the historical and listed buildings in the Station House development, has been carefully transformed into a two-hundred-seat, state-of-the-art theatre and cinema. Clifden Station House Theatre is one of the town’s premier entertainment halls, hosting many events, concerts, and performances year-round.
Clifden Station House is an ideal centre for exploring Connemara and all its famed attractions. It’s a fantastic example of old-world Ireland being thoughtfully restored into comfortable, homely surroundings full of history and character. WWW.CLIFDENSTATIONHOUSE.COM
BESPOKE LUXURY HANDCRAFTED IN THE WEST OF IRELAND BY MARIA ELENA SINIBALDI // PHOTOGRAPHY BY AOIFE HERRIOTT
Connemara Carpets exhibit tradition with custom design and unique colours to produce products made by experienced craftsmen.
CONNEMARA CARPETS HAS HAD MORE THAN FORTY YEARS OF EXPERIENCE PROVIDING DURABLE LUXURY CARPETS OF THE HIGHEST QUALITY TO CLIENTS WORLDWIDE. CONNEMARA CARPETS OFFERS SEAMLESS PIECES TO FIT ROOMS OF ANY SHAPE AND SIZE, WITH CUSTOM MEASURING AND COLOUR-MATCHING SERVICES AVAILABLE FOR A UNIQUE ADDITION TO THE OVERALL DESIGN OF ANY PROJECT. If you ever get the pleasure of driving on that quiet, scenic stretch of the N59 road on the Wild Atlantic Way between Clifden and Letterfrack in north-west Connemara, you may see a roadside sign that reads ‘Connemara Carpets’. Behind this sign is an amazing story of beauty, grace, and enduring quality: a tale of devotion, perseverance, and belief in the value and durability of outstanding workmanship. T H E E ARLY Y EA R S When Denis McMurray, founder of McMurray Carpets, first visited Connemara, he fell in love with its rugged beauty and the sense of peaceful isolation it inspired. In the early 1970s, when the McMurray family began making carpets in Connemara, they built a reputation of caring for the customer, giving close attention to detail, and always delivering
world-class handmade carpets. The sensational floor coverings, produced by dedicated artisans, were hand tufted using large frames for seamless carpets that are naturally soft, resilient, and durable. They were made to withstand years of heavy wear—some of the original carpets made for hotels are still in situ after four decades. In the old school buildings that were once the centre of the tiny village of Moyard, a new industry was born. Sourcing 100 per cent pure merino wool of the highest quality, spun to their own specification and dyed using ecologically sound methods, the family created a finished product that was natural, sustainable, and luxurious with the highest fire safety rating and an ability to stand the test of time. The company fast became renowned for its opulent creations and was proud to call some of the ConnemaraLife.ie
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OVER FORTY-FIVE YEARS SINCE OPENING ITS DOORS, THEY STILL PRIDE THEMSELVES ON THE INITIAL PRINCIPLES SET OUT BY THE MCMURRAY FAMILY, FROM CUSTOM DESIGN, COLOUR MATCHING, AND PRECISE MEASURING TO FITTING AND DELIVERY. most prestigious residences and establishments its clients—from Dublin to Dubai and from London to New York and Florida. McMurray Carpets became a thriving industry nestled quietly in the heart of Connemara. Employing a highly skilled local workforce, the factory and showroom provided a much-needed boost to the local economy. The ever-changing landscape and lively local community provided a continuous creative spark for the many unique pieces still scattered throughout the globe today. Densely piled and hand tufted with rich colour, these carpets were and still are the ultimate in natural bespoke luxury, a symbol of grandeur and an investment for the discerning client.
A carpet is hand tufted by a skilled artisan using a large frame.
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McMurray Carpets grace prestigious hotels, castles, corporate headquarters, palaces, and private residences in many countries. Their impressive client list is a tribute to the masterful skill and craftsmanship embodied in every carpet produced. D E C L I N E A N D S TR U G G L E Unfortunately, this level of dedication and passion was not entirely a match for the economic recession which hit Ireland in the 2007–2008 period. The economy both locally and globally was suffering. The prosperous years leading up to this had allowed for many national and international commissioned projects. The company, which had until then been a major employer in its rural community, employing more than twenty local people, was under threat of closure. Staying true to the
quality and level of service they had provided up to this point was of vital importance to the survival of the brand. However, maintaining these standards meant losing out to competitive pricing from commercial manufacturers working in lower-cost economies overseas. Realising the detriment of such a closure to Connemara as a whole, a new owner emerged from within the local community. With a strong background in local development, Kieran O’Donohue stepped in to help revive the company and see it through this tough time. His own belief in the importance of retaining the product quality and exceptional standards was the driving force behind the brand’s survival. Using all of the resources available—both personal and public—he began the process of nurturing the business back to life. With the cooperation of committed local designers, tufters, and finishers returning in good faith, the new brand, Connemara Carpets, launched early in 2011 with just a handful of staff members. It has gone from strength to strength ever since. They continue the legacy that was gifted to them by the original founders. Over forty-five years since opening its doors, they still pride themselves on the initial principles set out by the McMurray family, from custom design, colour matching, and precise measuring to fitting and delivery. Their design team is led by one of the founding members of the company and his vast knowledge allows them to carry the careful tradition laid down by the McMurrays, while also introducing modern design techniques. Drawing on the creative energy of the Wild Atlantic Way and the ever-changing landscape of Connemara, they stay true to what was the initial driving vision of the brand. RE VI VAL AN D R EC OV ERY Having cultivated relationships with architects and interior designers all over the world, Connemara Carpets works closely with these experts to add an extra flourish to their grand designs. In particular, Carleton Varney, president of Dorothy Draper and Company in New York, utilises the specialist design capabilities and unrivalled colour matching to enhance his own very personal service. He and his company encourage Connemara Carpets to push the boundaries of design and bring his vivid ideas to life. Commissioning pieces for private homes throughout the US and for luxury hotels, his unique eye for quality and his expressive use of colour have produced what some may view as the most intricate and colourful projects to date. INS P I RAT I O N F O R T H E F U T U R E Ireland has seen somewhat of an economic resurgence in the last two years, and the company is undergoing a period of growth. Larger projects are beginning to emerge as the economy continues to improve. One such project, completed last year, saw one of their biggest seamless pieces— 132 square metres (approximately 1420 square feet)—produced for the Galway County Council chamber, and this provided a welcome challenge for both designers and tufters alike. Borrowing its colours directly from the landscape of County Galway and using patterns of the ocean, their team created a carpet that was as impressive in visual terms as it was in size. Using more than twenty different colours and tones, the finished carpet was a landmark project which commanded much attention and high praise from local media. Ireland is now also seeing the return of Irish designers who had left due to lack of opportunity. They bring new ideas and approaches.
This 132-square-metre (1420 square feet) seamless piece produced for the Galway County Council chamber features over twenty colours and tones inspired by County Galway’s landscape. Photo courtesy of Galway County Council
The highest quality 100 per cent merino wool is spun to Connemara Carpet’s own specifications and dyed using ecologically sound methods.
These designers are ready to reinvest themselves in Ireland and in a brand that is rooted in its culture and resources. This will give way to what the company expects will be exciting creative developments in the coming years. Following the long record of exquisite quality and workmanship with infinite possibilities for size, design, and colour, Connemara Carpets remain committed to providing a unique service built on decades of tradition, experience, and, of course, a deep love of the Connemara landscape.
WWW. CONNEMARACARPETS. COM
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CONNEMARA CALENDAR OF EVENTS 2016
JUNE
Roundstone Regatta
Westport Sea Angling Festival
Each July the quiet Connemara village of Roundstone erupts in spectacular celebration of a maritime festival that dates back to the 1890s. Traditional boat races showcase athletic skill and the important role that these crafts have played in the island and coastal communities over the centuries.
22–26 JUNE
Celebrating its sixtieth year in 2016, the Westport Sea Angling Festival is one of the most prestigious events on the angling calendar, attracting anglers of all ages from all over Ireland, England, Scotland, Wales, and the Netherlands.
23 & 24 JULY
WWW.ROUNDSTONEREGATTA.COM
WWW.WESTPORTSEAANGLINGFESTIVAL.EU
Women’s Adventure Race Westport Food Festival
23 JULY
24–26 JUNE
A three-day celebration of food and drink with something to tempt all taste buds.
This adventure race, designed by amazing women and for amazing women, takes place in Galway. Down with sweaty, jostling men—this start line is just for the ladies!
WWW.WESTPORTFOODFESTIVAL.IE
WWW.GAELFORCEEVENTS.COM
Inishbofin Yoga Event 2016
Omey Races
28 JUNE–3 JULY
24 JULY
Ten workshops are available throughout the week as are island excursions that include guided walks, horse riding, pottery throwing, and boating. Expect long sunny days, blue skies, white sandy beaches, and a wonderful community of like-minded yogis.
The Omey Races take place annually at Omey Strand in Claddaghduff. Re-established as a tradition in 2001, the annual summer races have been attracting greater numbers every year for a wonderful day of sun, sand, sea, and, of course, horse racing, with up to nine races on the card.
WWW.INISHBOFIN.COM
WWW.GALWAYTOURISM.IE
Clew Bay Garden Trail
Claddaghduff Pony Show
JUNE–AUGUST
31 JULY
Explore the unique gardens along the shores of Clew Bay. Stunning views, inspiration, and tranquillity are all offered for your adventure along this beautiful coastline. All gardens open to aid charities.
The Claddaghduff Pony Show promises a fun-filled day packed with activities. The show field in Claddaghduff Village, County Galway, is in an idyllic location that overlooks the spectacular Omey Strand and Omey Island.
WWW.CLEWBAYGARDENTRAIL.IE
CONTACT: SINEAD O’FLAHERTY, 087 635 7634
JULY Connemara Rugby Sevens Tournament 1–3 JULY
Enjoy a weekend of fast-paced rugby in Clifden, the capital of Connemara. There is a full line-up of entertainment in the festival marquee and pitchside as teams compete for a spot in the championship match taking place Sunday. WWW.FACEBOOK.COM/CONNEMARASEVENS
Roundstone Connemara Pony, Dog, and Sheep Show 10 JULY
The Roundstone Pony Show, now in its eleventh year, is held annually on the second Sunday in July.
Galway Races Summer Festival 25–31 JULY
Ireland’s premier horse-racing festival takes place at Galway Racecourse, Ballybrit, Galway. Adrenalin-pumping action, heart-stopping finishes, and breathtaking fashion are all part of the Galway Races. WWW.GALWAYRACES.COM
Reek Sunday at Croagh Patrick 31 JULY
The traditional pilgrimage to this holy mountain near Westport stretches back from the Stone Age to present day. Croagh Patrick is renowned for its Patrician Pilgrimage in honour of Saint Patrick, Ireland’s patron saint. At the top, there is a modern chapel where Mass is celebrated and confessions are heard. WWW.CROAGH-PATRICK.COM
WWW.ROUNDSTONEEVENTS.COM
Galway International Arts Festival 11–24 JULY
This is one of Europe’s most inventive, vibrant, and colourful events. The festival, a truly international celebration of the performing and visual arts, takes place in and around Galway City each July. WWW.GIAF.IE
AUGUST 2016 Roundstone All-Ireland Dog Show 1 AUGUST
Dogs and handlers from all over Ireland compete for the titles of All-Ireland Supreme Champion and Reserve Champion. WWW.ROUNDSTONEEVENTS.COM
Westportif Cycling Challenge 16 JULY
Omey Dash Triathlon
Beginning in Westport with two routes, the Warrior 80 km and the Legend 160 km, the race is on through the scenery of Croagh Patrick, Mweelrea (Connaught’s highest mountain), Doolough Lake, Delphi, Killary Fjord, Ashleigh Falls, Leenane village, and the shores of Lough Mask in Tourmakeady.
6 AUGUST
WWW.WESTPORTIF.IE
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Omey Dash 2016 is a triathlon limited to two hundred entrants, so sign up as soon as possible. The race is open to all individuals and teams in any combination. WWW.FACEBOOK.COM/OMEYDASH
Connemara 100 6 & 7 AUGUST
The Connemara 100 on the West Coast of Ireland is run over a measured and certified 100-mile course.
OCTOBER The Great Fjord Swim 1 OCTOBER
WWW.CONNEMARA100.COM
Swim Ireland’s only fjord in the deep, clean waters of the Atlantic Ocean. Choose from two distances: 750 metres or 2 kilometres.
2016 Connemara Pony Festival
WWW.GAELFORCEEVENTS.COM
14–21 AUGUST
The annual Connemara Pony Festival celebrates the world-renowned Connemara pony and is built around the long-running Connemara Pony Show, which takes place each summer in Clifden. WWW.CPBS.IE
Gaelforce West
Conamara Sea Week 23–31 OCTOBER
The annual Conamara Sea Week takes place in the Quaker village of Letterfrack in north-west Connemara. It is a celebration of the wonderful marine heritage of Connemara. WWW.CEECC.ORG
20 AUGUST
The sixty-seven-kilometre course spans two counties and takes you from Glassilaun Beach in County Galway to the heritage town of Westport, County Mayo. The terrain includes mountains, bogland, trails, and the majestic waters of Killary Fjord. WWW.GAELFORCEEVENTS.COM
Glassilaun Watersports Day 21 AUGUST
This fun family day out at Glassilaun Beach in Renvyle features water-based activities including boat rides, scuba diving, and kayaking, as well as onshore activities.
NOVEMBER Rolling Sun Book Festival 4–6 NOVEMBER
This quirky boutique festival in Westport indulges bookworms and connoisseurs of music, song, and poetry. Set in the shadow of the ancient spiritual mountain, Croagh Patrick, it evokes the many layers of Irish culture in the best bardic and poetic traditions. WWW.ROLLINGSUNBOOKFESTIVAL.COM
Gaelforce Turf Warrior Challenge The Boheh Stone Walk 24 AUGUST
Immerse yourself in Mayo’s prehistoric culture and come view the Boheh Stone, a unique Neolithic feature. Join local archaeologists on this guided walk to hear about the site and, weather permitting, experience the amazing ‘rolling sun’ phenomenon for yourself. WWW.CLOGHERHERITAGE.COM
SEPTEMBER
5 NOVEMBER
Turf Warrior is a bog-crawling, wall-leaping, rope-swinging, bone-chilling, and extremely fun event! WWW.GAELFORCEEVENTS.COM
Winter Wonderland at Westport House 26 NOVEMBER–24 DECEMBER
Make extra special memories this Christmas with a magical visit to the stunning, festive, and historic Westport House. WWW.WESTPORTHOUSE.IE
Galway Races September Race Meeting 5 & 6 SEPTEMBER
The September race meeting is always popular due to its relaxed atmosphere. Racegoers can enjoy good food, bar facilities, on-course bookmakers, the big screen, and, of course, great racing.
2017
WWW.GALWAYRACES.COM
All-Ireland Supreme Champion of Champions Connemara Pony Show 11 SEPTEMBER
The Pony Showing Season of 2016 reaches its pinnacle at the annual Supreme Champion of Champions Show in Roundstone, where first-place winners of 2016 Connemara Pony classes countrywide will compete for the title of Supreme Champion. WWW.ROUNDSTONEEVENTS.COM
MARCH Clifden Traditional Music Festival WWW.CLIFDENTRADFEST.COM
APRIL Connemara International Marathon WWW.CONNEMARATHON.COM
Clifden Lifeboat 10k Run 11 SEPTEMBER
The inaugural Clifden Lifeboat 10k race took place on 14 September 2008 to raise funds for the RNLI and the Clifden Lifeboat; it is now in its ninth year. The race is open to all athletes, as well as leisure runners and walkers, and can be entered into individually or as a team. WWW.CLIFDEN10K.COM
Clifden Arts Festival 15–25 SEPTEMBER
The longest-running community arts festival in Ireland, Clifden Arts Festival is now in its thirty-ninth year. This year’s programme promises to have something for everyone yet again. WWW.CLIFDENARTSWEEK.IE
MAY Connemara Mussel Festival WWW.CONNEMARAMUSSELFESTIVAL.COM
Féile Chois Cuain, Traditional Irish Music Festival, Louisburgh WWW.FEILECHOISCUAIN.COM
Inishbofin Arts Festival WWW.INISHBOFIN.COM
Westport House Open Day WWW.WESTPORTHOUSE.IE
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A Beauty Like No Other
Ireland’s West is a wonder to behold. From the artistry and magic of her centuries-old stone walls that crisscross the rolling green hills to the rocky, untamed shores of the Atlantic, Connemara is a veritable feast for the senses. Let your eyes gaze upon the Twelve Bens framed against the morning sky. Listen as the waters of the wild ocean meet the shores. Let the smell of a peat fire transport you to Ireland’s storied past. Savour the bountiful seafood, caught fresh each day. Let your hands brush along the wild heather on a winding back road. Connemara’s beauty may become your muse, as it has for countless authors, poets, and artists through the centuries.
An early autumn sunset off the Errislannan Peninsula Photo by Mark Furniss
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I wanted real adventures to happen to myself. But real adventures, I reflected, do not happen to people who remain at home: they must be sought abroad.
— James Joyce, Dubliners
A pony grazes before the ruin of Renvyle Castle in the most north-west part of Connemara. Photo by Romona Robbins
Derrygimlagh Bog is one of the most historically significant sites in Connemara, where aviators Alcock and Brown landed near the Marconi telegraph station in 1919. Photo by Mark Furniss
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A golden sun rises over Roundstone Bog. Photo by Mark Furniss
May the Irish hills caress you. May her lakes and rivers bless you. May the luck of the Irish enfold you. May the blessings of Saint Patrick behold you.
— Irish Blessing Derryinver Bridge is one of many charming crossings in Ireland’s west. Photo by Romona Robins
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When the skies are ink above us and the sea runs white with foam In a cot in Connemara there’s a wife and wee one praying To the One who walked the waters once, to send us safely home.
— Francis Fahy,‘ The Queen of Connemara’ Photo by Trevor Dubber
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Ireland is where strange tales begin and happy endings are possible.
— Charles Haughey
The Inagh Valley Road is one of Connemara’s most scenic drives. Photo by Mark Furniss
“After a nice hike through the bog I spotted this cottage and went for a closer look. I spotted the old Fordson tractor and knew this would make an interesting focal point to amazing mountains in the background.” Taken at the foothills of Benbaun in Connemara. Photo by Trevor Dubber
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RENVYLE HOUSE HOTEL & RESORT
R
envyle House is a family owned, historic country hotel set on a 150 acre estate on the shores of the Wild Atlantic Way first opened in 1883.
Renvyle is an award winning hotel for its dining, service and Irish hospitality. Comfortable lounges with fireside seats and cosy turf fires. Caring members of staff who are delighted to share their knowledge of the area. Our Executive Chef, a Commissioner of Eurotoques, sources local ingredients both from the mountains, farms and the Atlantic at our doorstep. Connemara Hill Lamb, Irish Beef and the freshest Seafood grace our menus daily. The hotel grounds have many complimentary amenities for guests including a Par 3 Golf Course, a beach, a private freshwater lake for boating, fly-fishing and canoeing. There are two all weather tennis courts, a children’s playground, an outdoor heated swimming pool in the summer months, croquet lawn, woodland walks, kitchen gardens and sites of archaeological interest. Magic for Vacations ~ Memorable for Weddings ~ Here, the only stress is on relaxation.
Renvyle, Connemara, Co. Galway, H91 X8Y8, Ireland. Tel: +353 (0)95 46100 | Email: info@renvyle.com www.renvyle.com
HATS OFF RACES! TO THE
Each year, the last Monday of July officially kicks off Galway Race Week. Tradition has it that racegoers dress up for the event, both to support those racing and for fun. It’s the time of year that men pull out their three-piece suits and women search for the perfect hat. The week-long event is filled with exciting horse races and great craic all around for the 250,000 attendees.
By AMANDA CROWLEY Photography courtesy of GALWAY RACES ConnemaraLife.ie
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he Galway Races are widely recognized as the premier horse racing festival in Ireland, but they’re also the most fashionable. Drawing the biggest crowds and the highest fashions during the week at the Ballybrit Racecourse is Ladies Day (Thursday). Women don their best dresses, pull their haute couture hats from their closets, and compete for the prestigious titles of Best Dressed and Best Hat. If the lure of fashion isn’t enough, the prizes may pique your interest, as the Best Dressed winner takes home a prize worth over €10,000, and Best Hat receives a prize worth €2,000!
Women don their best dresses, pull their haute couture hats from their closets, and compete for the prestigious titles of Best Dressed and Best Hat. It is the pinnacle of the summer race calendar, and this year all races on Ladies Day (28 July) are sponsored by Guinness, with the feature race, the Guinness Galway Hurdle Handicap, beginning at 1.50 p.m. Gates open at 11 a.m. Live music will fill the race grounds 60
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throughout the day, and there will be plenty to eat and drink. While there is no formal entry procedure for the Ladies Day Best Dressed and Best Hat competitions, those who are interested in competing should arrive early, as finalists are chosen by 2.30 p.m. Judges will simply make their way through the crowds, inviting finalists to the Ladies Day Marquee, and the winner will be announced by 3.30 p.m. Last year’s competition saw Alex Butler from Ballyedmond, Midleton, County Cork, crowned Best Dressed. Her winning ensemble featured a one-shoulder mid-length red dress by Teria Yabar and a headpiece by award-winning milliner Jennifer Wrynne. The look was completed with nude Christian Louboutin heels and a pearl clutch. The competition was sponsored by the Kilkenny Group, and altogether the prize was worth over €10,000, including a shopping spree at Kilkenny, a luxury five-star break courtesy of Ireland’s Blue Book, clothing by Irish designer Aideen Bodkin, a bespoke Waterford Crystal trophy, jewellery by Irish designer Maureen Lynch, a year’s worth of haircare from Peter Mark, and a luxury Lancôme cosmetics hamper. Whether you’re betting on a horse or your outfit, you’re sure to come out a winner by just attending the Galway Races!
TRIBAL CITY THE BRIDGE TO CONNEMARA
By NICHOLAS GRUNDY
Morning view on the buildings and fishing boats along Galway Dock. Photo by Rihardzz / Shutterstock
espite its growing reputation of late, some people surprisingly still do not know where Galway is exactly. I always tell them: ‘Leave Dublin, head directly west for two hundred kilometres, and once you hit the ocean again you’re there.’ Resting at the head of Galway Bay, the city is not, however, quite at the extreme end of Ireland. While it can seem remote to some, Galway is rather well connected to the rest of the country while also serving as one of only three narrow entrances into the Connemara region further west. The city is squeezed between the sea to the south and the massive Lough Corrib to the north. This narrow spit of land between two great bodies of water measures only a few miles across, and at present a mere four bridges span the River Corrib, linking the rest of Ireland with Connemara. Galway comprises a number of distinct areas. In the centre, the keen eye will still spot numerous remnants of the old town walls which roughly encompass today’s inner city. Walking westward past countless buskers down the pedestrianised Shop Street, one reaches the Spanish Arch—in fact two arches forming a bulwark jutting out where river meets sea. Extending to the south is the much-photographed Long Walk, a row of terraced houses splashed in all variety of vibrant colours. Crossing the river atop Wolfe Tone Bridge brings you to the Claddagh, originally a seaside fishing community outside the city’s defences. Throughout summer, one can spot the area’s traditional fishing boats, Galway hookers, venturing out to sea as they unfurl their ruddy-brown sails. Departing the namesake of Galway’s renowned Claddagh rings, a short walk further west sees the ocean emerge once more. Here lies Salthill, a stylish shoreline suburb and home to the long seafront walk known simply as ‘the Prom’. Strolling along, you will find the picturesque diving board and beach at Blackrock, as well as the magnificent Silverstrand at the city’s limits.
Awaiting the sunrise at Blackrock Diving Board near Salthill, Galway. Photo by Rihardzz / Shutterstock
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Back in Galway’s heart, you can trace its history northward along the river. The city’s Irish name, Gaillimh, comes from this very river, known more commonly as the Corrib in English. At the river’s mouth is the original harbour. During the Middle Ages, Galway was the central port in Ireland for all trade with France and Spain, also welcoming maritime routes from around the Scottish isles. Further north, the river’s raging waters quickly branch out into various canals and races. Hundreds of years ago, these waterways rushed beneath the city’s many mills and distilleries. At one point, Galway even became the whiskey capital of Ireland, with the amber liquid brewed in immense stone structures vaulting over the many channels.
BACK IN GALWAY’S HEART, YOU CAN TRACE ITS HISTORY NORTHWARD ALONG THE RIVER. THE CITY’S IRISH NAME, GAILLIMH, COMES FROM THIS VERY RIVER, KNOWN MORE COMMONLY AS THE CORRIB IN ENGLISH. From the thirteenth century right up until the end of the 1800s, a group of fourteen merchant families dominated all facets of life in the city. These clans eventually became known as the Tribes of Galway, and the term has certainly stuck. The local Gaelic football players and hurlers are the Tribesmen, while many of the family names can be spotted all around. After seeing the name ‘Joyce’ plastered on shopfronts and signs, one saunters down Kirwan’s Lane only to re-emerge and soon stumble upon Lynch’s Castle. The tribes also spread westward throughout Connemara, with descendant John D’Arcy of the D’Arcy dynasty founding Clifden.
Merlin Castle in Merlin Park on the eastern side of Galway City. Photo by Nicholas Grundy
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One aspect presided over by the families was Galway’s social life. While the fourteen houses no longer wield their former influence, the city’s pre-eminence as Ireland’s party capital has given rise to a group of modern-day tribes vying for control of the bustling social scene. Not necessarily tied to any specific bloodline, the current clans instead relate to geographical areas,
A view of Galway Cathedral reflecting beautifully in the Eglinton Canal. Photo by Nicholas Grundy
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JUST A STONE’S THROW ACROSS THE RIVER IS GALWAY’S WEST END, A POWERHOUSE FOR BOUTIQUE PUBS AND EATERIES, EVEN BOASTING ONE OF THE CITY’S TWO MICHELIN-STAR RESTAURANTS. WITH SO MUCH HAPPENING IN SUCH A SMALL SPACE, IT’S EASY TO SEE WHY GALWAY IS A TOURIST MECCA.
Galway’s pedestrian laneways are full to the brim with pubs and cafes. Photo by Nicholas Grundy
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each home to their own tightly knit constellation of popular venues. In the city centre, you have Eyre Square and Shop Street, housing Galway’s largest nightclubs. Around the corner is up-and-coming Woodquay, currently hoping to reinvent itself and win back some of the revellers. Back down toward the river sits the Latin Quarter, popular among tourists and locals alike. Finally, just a stone’s throw across the river is Galway’s West End, a powerhouse for boutique pubs and eateries, even boasting one of the city’s two Michelin-star restaurants. With so much happening in such a small space, it’s easy to see why Galway is a tourist mecca. Foreign tourists are not the only reason for Galway’s rich nightlife. Universities such as the National University of Ireland Galway and the Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology ensure a steady supply of energetic students keen to let their hair down year-round. Meanwhile, the city’s exhaustive list of annual festivals and events entices locals and outsiders alike. Spectators from Dublin, Cork, and Belfast flock to Ireland’s west in hopes of catching the Macnas street performers at one of their summer shows or the Halloween parade. Mouth-watering produce is brought in from Connemara for the yearly food festival held in April. And if that wasn’t enough, specific foods such as oysters even have their own separate festivals later in the year. In July and August, the city is swamped with punters keen to make it big at the Galway Races. If horse racing isn’t your cup of tea, there are plenty
of opportunities for the keen runner, including the Streets of Galway road race. The Galway International Arts Festival is a major hit each summer, showcasing local, national, and overseas talent. In fact, the Galway art scene is steadily reaching its boiling point, tipped to explode should it win the highly anticipated title of European Capital of Culture in the year 2020. Galway is indeed the most bohemian of Ireland’s cities, where everyone knows their neighbourhood’s eccentric artists and other creatives. When it comes to cultural offerings, you won’t come up short here. Accomplished musicians perform in crowded taverns which host poetry readings the very next day. Brilliantly choreographed stage performers dazzle onlookers across the road from gourmet restaurateurs. Unconventional art forms are likewise burgeoning, the most conspicuous being large-scale street art installations. As a cultural hub, Galway attracts street artists from far and wide. One particular painter recently returned to announce his mission to bring colour and life to the streets. A beautiful aspect of all this is the small-town vibe still felt in this city. In other parts of the world, it’s rare that you can spot a new mural only to realise it was painted by your own neighbour.
Rarely does a view beat that of the Claddagh in Galway City during summertime. Photo by Gabriela Insuratelu / Shutterstock
A FAVOURITE EXPRESSION AMONG NATIVES IS ‘TAKE IT EASY’, AND IT DOESN’T TAKE LONG FOR THIS APPROACH TO LIFE TO RUB OFF ON OUTSIDERS. Perhaps it is precisely this laid-back nature of Galway which is its defining feature. Unlike in Dublin, here you have both the space and the time to settle in and explore. A favourite expression among natives is ‘take it easy’, and it doesn’t take long for this approach to life to rub off on outsiders. As soon as the sun is shining, the Salthill promenade is thronged with walkers. As you watch them meander past, stopping to chat with dawdling cyclists, it is easy to understand why Galway was recently voted the friendliest city in the world by readers of Travel + Leisure. Just one word of warning though: many a visitor has come to Galway only to become trapped in this glorious locale. So maybe just book yourself a one-way ticket for now. 68
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Tig Cóilí on Mainguard Street is one of many laid-back pubs in Galway perfect for enjoying a pint on your way to or from Connemara. Photo by Rolf G Wackenberg / Shutterstock
In ultimate style and luxury, our tours of Connemara will leave you spellbound. We offer the highest personal standards in comfort, safety and reliability. Our driver guides will provide you with a caring, friendly and professional service.
‘Connemara is a savage beauty.’ —Oscar Wilde
Connemara, encircled on three sides by the Wild Atlantic Ocean, is one of the most beautiful areas of Ireland. Your tour meanders around the most scenic coastal roads in the world, where you will be mesmerised by hidden bays and coves. Travelling inland you’ll experience Connemara’s raw, untouched landscape, so pure and luscious, carpeted in the softness of pink and purple heather, defined by clear rivers and glinting black loughs and embodied by stone walls. Your heart is captured.
Stay in luxurious accommodation. Dine on the richness of the Connemara larder—land and sea. Spirit of Ireland Executive Travel Drive, Passion, Determination
www.wildatlanticwaydaytours.com info@spiritofirelandtravel.com www.spiritofirelandtravel.com +353 91 77 8778
Reframing THE FUTURE
Landscape 1, Desk with Maple and Yew by Gabriel Hielscher, Galway Photo by Geraldine O’Brien
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By AMANDA CROWLEY Photography by Courtesy of GMIT LETTERFRACK
The village of Letterfrack, nestled beside Connemara National Park and Diamond Hill, treats visitors and residents to some of Connemara’s most stunning scenery and a peaceful atmosphere. This quiet yet vibrant community is home to the National Centre for Excellence in Furniture Design and Technology, housed at the Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology (GMIT) Letterfrack. The college fosters creativity in students and teaches them the skills they need to excel in the fields of furniture design and technology, all while they live in this beautiful part of Connemara. The old building at GMIT dates back to 1887, when it was part of the former Saint Joseph’s Industrial School for boys run by the Irish Christian Brothers, which closed in 1974. Connemara West, a community and rural development organisation based in north-west Connemara, purchased it after that, and through a partnership with GMIT, the college was opened in 1987. New buildings were added in 2002 to accommodate the increase in enrolment at GMIT, house its state-of-the-art technology, and raise the excellent standard of education it provides. GMIT Letterfrack provides students with a top-notch education from dedicated lecturers and professors. The machine halls and bench rooms accommodate state-of-the-art machinery including computer numerically controlled (CNC) and laser technology, as well as robotics and computer aided design (CAD) laboratories. The college has connections with major furniture design and manufacturing companies around the world, allowing students to gain experience through work placements and seek employment with top professionals in design and manufacturing. In a recent interview with the Connacht Tribune, Dr Fergal Barry, president of GMIT, stated that Letterfrack ‘is really our star performer. … For our careers fair this year, we had very senior executives from abroad flying in by helicopter recruiting from there.’ Barry isn’t the only fan of GMIT Letterfrack; President Michael D. Higgins visits the prestigious campus regularly. When storms caused trees to fall on the grounds of Áras an Uachtaráin in 2014, the timber was donated for use in student projects, with President Higgins requesting that some pieces be made to give as gifts to dignitaries who come to visit Ireland.
AWARD-WINNING CAMPUS Not only has GMIT Letterfrack been designated a National Centre for Excellence in Furniture Design and Technology, but it has also won awards for everything from its buildings, which received honors
from both the Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland and the Architectural Association of Ireland in 2001 and 2002 respectively, to its students, who have regularly claimed top prizes from the Design and Crafts Council of Ireland, IrelandSkills National Competitions, the global Undergraduate Awards, and the Wood Marketing Federation Ireland. The welcoming and knowledgeable staff is made up of published authors, researchers, and experts in the field of technology and furniture design. Three of the lecturers have won the GMIT President’s Award for Teaching Excellence in the past seven years.
EMERGING DESIGNERS AT GMIT LETTERFRACK GABRIEL HIELSCHER With hopes of one day opening his own workshop focusing on contemporary design in Ireland, GMIT Letterfrack student Gabriel Hielscher anchors his passion in the creative landscape of Connemara. ‘Letterfrack may appear to be a small village, but I find it to be a very sociable place,’ Hielscher says. ‘I am fortunate to be surrounded by several neighbours all working in creative disciplines and can see why many people come here to be inspired. I had never known such a vast amount of bright colors existed in the Irish landscape.’ Hielscher’s education has been enriched by the close bond he’s formed with classmates and lecturers at GMIT Letterfrack. The campus is small and specialized, which often leads to friendships with fellow students ConnemaraLife.ie
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(Design Graphics and Construction) programme during an open day on the campus and made his decision to attend. ‘I got a really good vibe from everybody I spoke to,’ Elliffe recalls. ‘Lecturers and students alike spoke highly of the Letterfrack community; this community is such a big part of why Letterfrack is ideal for teacher education. No door is closed to you—with the exception of the machine hall for health and safety—and I mean that. From the ladies in Connemara West (a community development organisation) to the head of department, everybody is willing to listen, answer any questions you have, address any issues that you might be having. It is quite simply a community.’ Elliffe, a mature student with a young family, was inspired by this spirit of support and passion for education and passes it along to his students. Having just finished his first teaching placement, he credits the lessons learned at GMIT Letterfrack with the success of its students. ‘Letterfrack of course gives you great practical skills, but it also gives you the pedagogical skills that enables you to pass that knowledge and skill on to your own students.’
NÁDHÚRA DESIGN
‘IRISH DESIGN 2015 SEEMS TO HAVE OPENED A LOT OF PEOPLE’S EYES AND INTEREST IN WHAT IS HAPPENING HERE.’ and staff. ‘I find that I learn as much from my college friends as I do from the curriculum,’ Hielscher explains. ‘All of the students are very dedicated to their courses, and we are constantly discussing college work.’ He is currently on a five-month work placement in the UK with Benchmark furniture. Benchmark deals primarily with high-end solid wood furniture and focuses on quality and design. The future of design in Ireland is bright, and Hielscher believes the coming years will see even greater progress: ‘Irish Design 2015 seems to have opened a lot of people’s eyes and interest in what is happening here.’
Top: Drift, Rocking Chair with Ash and Cherry by Robert Gorman, Kilkenny Photo by Geraldine O’Brien Bottom: The college’s campus sits in the beautiful village of Letterfrack, where students can concentrate on their studies and take inspiration from the landscape.
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KARL ELLIFFE Karl Elliffe trained as a carpenter working in the construction industry until several friends suggested he would be a great teacher and that GMIT Letterfrack had a course he should look into. In 2013, he spoke with staff and students in the Bachelor of Science (Honours) in Education
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Nádhúra has strived to change the game in custom furniture design since it opened in 2012. Derived from Nádúrtha, meaning ‘natural’ in Gaeilge, Nádhúra is a Galway-based company composed of GMIT Letterfrack alumni, taking the wealth of experience, skills, and creative talents they developed to the next level. Their experience ranges from work in Ireland and North America with prominent architectural woodworking firms and within the aerospace industry, to interior design consultation, advocating universal design principles, and bespoke, hand-crafted products. ‘All the skills I learned in Letterfrack are so applicable to what I now do at work,’ attests Nádhúra team member Ainslie Peters. The diversity of skill sets among the team has contributed to giving Nádhúra a strong footing as its designers navigate this dynamic industry.
Top: Inspired by traditional Irish country-style furniture, Nádhúra’s Tuath range exhibits the company’s values of quality and sustainability and is customisable to the client’s desires Photo by Gerard Conneely
Bottom: The Nádhúra team is made up of GMIT Letterfrack graduates. Left to right: Ainslie Peters, Oisin White, Peter Ranalow, Mark Leonard, and Michael Cooney Photo by Gerard Conneely
Nádhúra’s design professionals ensure their methods and values have been integrated into their work from the very beginning as they offer a range of tailor-made pieces, from kitchen tables to dressers and sideboards. The company sources natural materials that are produced ethically and responsibly. All Nádhúra products have been designed in the spirit of innovation, using the latest tools in computer-aided design and an intelligent, intentional process that allows for the customization of each piece. Customers can co-design their ideal products in terms of size, finish, material, and design features, resulting in a product that is exactly what a customer wants—without lengthy redesign times and the prohibitive costs typical of custom furniture. Marrying an appreciation for fine Irish craftsmanship and aesthetics with an understanding of emerging technologies and design processes, Nádhúra conceived its first furniture range, Tuath, a modern furniture collection inspired by traditional Irish country style. The line truly exemplifies Nádhúra’s company values of quality, sustainability, and customization. Irish vernacular furniture would have been naturally sustainable, with pieces being handcrafted from available material and designed with unique features based on the location of the maker. In adapting these principles to the modern furniture market, Nádhúra’s products are made by trusted manufacturing partners local to where the customer lives. In adopting this approach, Nádhúra not only supports talented makers but also boasts a dramatically reduced environmental impact as the products do not need to travel great distances.
CUSTOMERS CAN CO-DESIGN THEIR IDEAL PRODUCTS IN TERMS OF SIZE, FINISH, MATERIAL, AND DESIGN FEATURES, RESULTING IN A PRODUCT THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT A CUSTOMER WANTS. This is just the start of the Nádhúra story. This concept quickly evolved into a comprehensive design service, and Nádhúra now works with clients in America, the UK, and Ireland to deliver engineered solutions ready for manufacture. It has an impressive portfolio of projects. Additionally, the team’s advanced process has led to collaborative relationships with interior designers, creating custom furniture ranges and bespoke products.
www.GMIT.ie/Letterfrack www.NadhuraDesign.ie
BE INSPIRED AT GMIT LETTERFRACK 20 June through 28 August 2016 come and enjoy ‘Vision’, an exhibition of creative and innovative furniture design and technology projects. Open to visitors Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. until 1 p.m. and 2 p.m. until 5 p.m.
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A Family Affair GLENBRICKEN FARM AND ITS LEGACY BY AMANDA CROWLEY PHOTOGRAPHY BY ROMONA ROBBINS
The rugged landscape of Connemara and the fierce beauty of its coastline frame the lives of those who call the west of Ireland home. Its rich history has been formed through centuries of tradition, the unwavering strength of its people, and a dedication to the land. One family, the Gorhams of County Galway, have devoted over fifty years to their passion—the Connemara pony—and have attained recognition as breeders of world renown.
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M
alachy Gorham, his wife, Jane, and their children, Maria, Mal, and Molly, carry on his father’s legacy at Glenbricken Farm near the town of Clifden. Malachy’s brothers, Joe and John, are invaluable when it comes to showing ponies in the ring, not to mention the less glamorous side of the business, such as web development and other technical duties. Their sisters, Ann and Mary, make it a point to be available to help the family during the Connemara Pony Show held each August in Clifden. Since 1924, thousands of people have travelled to Clifden to attend the prestigious week-long event. Whether they wish to buy a pony or simply to admire the breed, Clifden is the place to be
of the Gorham family not only because they have won numerous awards over the years, but also because Malachy’s nephew, the first child of the next generation, was born on show day back in 1989. ‘It was a great day for the family,’ remembers Malachy. Growing up on a farm, Malachy felt an undeniable connection to the horses. He worked alongside his father to learn the subtle qualities that distinguish a good pony from a great pony. ‘It’s not an exact science; there is some trial and error,’ Malachy notes. ‘A prize-winning mare and stallion will not always produce a winner.’ Considering the breed’s traits and demeanour, Malachy studies the bloodlines of a stallion and carefully chooses a mare that he senses will be a good fit for the best appearance in their offspring. Then the trial-and-error phase begins: ‘You really never know what is going to work. We’re not in it for the money—if we were, we would just be cranking out foals and it wouldn’t be good for the horse. They aren’t machines.’ Protecting and honouring the Connemara pony breed is in the Gorham blood.
Growing up on a farm, Malachy felt an undeniable connection to the horses. He worked alongside his father to learn the subtle qualities that distinguish a good pony from a great pony. for Connemara pony equestrians at the top of their game. ‘It’s our Christmas,’ says Malachy. ‘As a family we work hard all week, but there is plenty of time for celebrating.’ The Connemara Pony Show holds a special place in the hearts
Malachy’s eldest child, Maria, has also developed a love for the ponies. Like her father, she adores the foaling season, as new life brings hope, renewed commitment, and endless possibility. She also enjoys riding and showing in competitions, but she especially loves figuring out what the horses are naturally good at and then working with them to enhance ConnemaraLife.ie
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‘I’m happy when I see a pony I’ve sold go off and win. That gives me a sense of pride to see our work paying off for someone else.’ those traits. With expertise and poise beyond her years, Maria confidently moves around two of the family’s mares, who seem to respect her presence. She is quickly absorbing the knowledge and wisdom imparted by her father and grandfather as well. The ponies of Glenbricken Farm are known as Kingstown Connemara Ponies, and Malachy has travelled throughout the UK, Europe, America, and Australia representing his Kingstown line. With the Kingstown family growing worldwide, he has friends all over and believes this camaraderie is ‘one of the best parts of the pony community.’ The Kingstown ponies have gone on to be very successful for other owners, who in turn promote the name. With a great pony bloodline, a wealth of knowledge, careful planning, and a bit of luck, Malachy has set his ponies apart, and he realizes that people come to him to get the authentic Connemara ponies. ‘I’m happy when I see a pony I’ve sold go off and win. That gives me a sense of pride to see our work paying off for someone else,’ he says. ‘I do travel a bit to judge and give seminars on Connemara ponies. Recently at a competition, someone remarked, “You have the most marketable item in the equine world right now.” I really do believe there is no better animal. We all have a natural love of the horses. They have become part of the family.’ ‘And they get Christmas cake, too!’ Maria chimes in. 76
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a trip to
By t o r i p h e l p s Photog raphy by c o l l e e n d u f f l e y
Darina Allen is probably the most famous person you’ve never heard of. If you live in the United States, that is. The rest of the world is quite familiar with her. Though she’s sometimes called the Julia Child of Ireland, Allen is, in fact, a true original. An Irishwoman who was raised in a tiny village and now travels the world, she’s both charmingly laid-back and fiercely passionate when it comes to food. At her distinguished Ballymaloe Cookery School, students quickly learn that Allen isn’t interested in futuristic culinary trends or any dishes with more style than substance. The internationally renowned chef and cookbook author is far more concerned with where food comes from. And she thinks you should be, too.
Mother Nature’s Classroom
Allen and her family have created an empire around simple, fresh, farm-to-table food from their home base in the Cork countryside on Ireland’s southern coast. She doesn’t run Ballymaloe for the money; with her status, Allen could make a lot more simply by doing TV appearances. She welcomes students to
her home in order to show them, literally, where food comes from. Or at least where it ought to come from. She first came to this plot of land in the late 1960s, fresh out of hotel school and unable to find a job. The lack of employment offers didn’t reflect on her talent, but rather the times. ‘Men were chefs, and women ran tea shops,’ she says wryly. Nothing against tea shops, but she had other plans. She’d heard about a woman, Myrtle Allen, who had opened a country inn and restaurant a few years earlier, writing the menu every day based on what was in season. She even made her own ice cream with milk from her own cows. It stuck with Allen because it was so odd; nobody ran restaurants out in the country. She now knows that it was the first such venture in Ireland and perhaps in the British Isles.
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llen wrote to this pioneering woman and enquired about a job. Myrtle responded warmly, inviting her to join the kitchen and mentioning that she had children about the same age. Spoiler alert: Allen became an Allen by marrying one of those children. ‘I joined the family the expeditious way—by marrying the boss’s son,’ she says. The lifestyle suited Allen perfectly. She had been raised in the country, one of nine children in a home where there was always a stew simmering or a pie baking. Her family had a kitchen garden, hens for eggs, and a Kerry cow for milk. Perfectly simple, home-cooked food was all she knew. Processed food was nearly unheard of, and there certainly wasn’t any in the house. Rather, her mother designed meals around what was popping up in the garden. Of the Allen family’s eventual market-cornering enterprises, she shrugs that one thing simply led to another. There are now four generations of Allens living and working within a few miles of each other, including her own four children and ten grandchildren. They all have separate businesses under the Ballymaloe umbrella, from a garden shop to a catering company to a farmers’ market. ‘We all want to make a living on the land we love,’ she explains. Allen’s main responsibility is Ballymaloe Cookery School. It sits on a one-hundred-acre certified organic farm—the first cooking school in the world to do so— and boasts acres of greenhouses and livestock dwellings that serve as outdoor classrooms. Ballymaloe was an organic, farm-to-table, composting operation before any of those things were buzzwords—or even had a name. It’s not a sales pitch; it’s just who they are and how they’ve always lived. Colleen Duffley can attest to that. The Santa Rosa Beach, Florida, resident has been to Ballymaloe multiple times over the last fifteen-plus years, falling in love with the people and their ‘new’ ideas immediately. She recalls an occasion during one of the her trips when a student threw a scrap of food into the garbage. ‘Darina pulled it out and said, “We’ll put this in the compost pile because we compost everything.” She was very nice about it, but that scrap wasn’t going to be thrown away,’ Duffley says.
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Chefs, aspiring chefs, and food lovers from every corner of the planet travel to Ballymaloe for cooking classes. A commercial photographer who’s travelled the world shooting campaigns for top magazines and retail VIPs such as Neiman Marcus and Pottery Barn, Duffley’s passion for cooking initially drew her to Ballymaloe. What she learned there, like the principles of the Slow Food movement, kept her coming back. Not to mention that while the rest of the world was still disdainful of Irish cuisine, Duffley had some of the best food of her life at Ballymaloe. Slow Food is another just-the-way-it’s-always-been regimen that Allen adhered to before it was a ‘thing’. But now that it’s an official movement, she’s a zealous supporter. The Slow Food movement, launched in 1986 by Italian journalist Carlo Petrini, came about following a protest to keep McDonald’s out of Rome. (The protest failed, by the way, and today a visit to the iconic Spanish Steps includes the smell of French fries.) But from those protests arose an international organisation dedicated to everything that fast food is not: good, clean, and fair. Proponents believe that food should be good for you, produced in clean surroundings that don’t damage the environment, and fair to the people who produce it. Allen calls the Slow Food movement a vital correction to our badly fractured food system. She points out that the emphasis for the past half century has been on producing maximum food at minimum cost. Despite the fact that our health depends on the food we eat, we spend less on food now than at any time in history—and we know more about the lives of celebrities than we do about how our food is produced. ‘The public has been lulled into the concept that cheap food is their right, but there’s no such thing as cheap food,’ she cautions. ‘We pay for it somehow.’
Darina Allen
Ballymaloe was an organic, farm-to-table, composting operation before any of those things were buzzwords— or even had a name.
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ews stories highlight those costs, like rising obesity and disease rates. Allen is most frustrated by the fact that whole generations don’t know where their food comes from, let alone how to grow it. She believes it’s essential to embed those essentials into school curricula. Shouldn’t feeding ourselves be considered at least as important as math and science, she asks? And by ‘embed’, she means into every subject, at every level. She suggests learning about geography by studying the foods of different regions or about math by studying food-related percentages.
The Place of Sweet Honey
Until the rest of the world comes around, though, she’ll continue to do her part at Ballymaloe. Chefs, aspiring chefs, and food lovers from every corner of the planet travel to Ballymaloe for cooking classes that range from a half-day course to a prestigious threemonth certificate programme that equips students to earn their livings as chefs. But you don’t have to be on a class roster to access Ballymaloe’s foodie paradise. The gardens are open to the public, as are the daily cooking demonstrations. ‘Just swing by,’ Allen invites.
Whether students or visitors, people come to Ballymaloe to learn about cooking. But more importantly, they come to truly understand how food gets from farm to fork—and how short that journey should be. By now, Duffley gets it. And yet she can’t stay away. She was last at Ballymaloe in July 2015 and fell into the familiar routine of spending the morning with the milk cows and picking produce in the gardens. Then it’s time to head for the kitchens because, except for breakfast, which is usually cooked by the staff, students eat what they cook. Ballymaloe instructors cover everything from basic knife skills to advanced culinary techniques, and they do it in a supportive, nonthreatening way. Duffley is an accomplished cook who’s been to schools all over the world, but she insists there’s something special about Ballymaloe. ‘They really hone your cooking skills’, she relates, ‘but they do it with such ease that it makes you feel comfortable attacking any recipe.’ Perhaps it’s the family-centred aspect of Ballymaloe that makes people feel like they’ve come home. Or maybe it’s the fact that the school and farm are a soul-satisfying return to how food—and life—should be. There’s no denying that the past is very much present at Ballymaloe. The word itself is an ancient Gaelic term that translates to ‘the townland of sweet honey’. Even a thousand years ago, it seems, the area was a culinary hot spot. The fertile land and the commitment of the Allen family to nurturing that land have led to astonishing things. Allen has appeared in more than half a dozen of her own cooking series, sometimes alongside her brother, Rory O’Connell, whom Duffley calls one of the most gifted chefs she has ever seen in action. She also writes a weekly food and travel column for the Irish Examiner and helped launch the Kerrygold Ballymaloe Litfest of Food and Wine. The only event of its kind in the country, Litfest combines Ireland’s illustrious tradition of prose and poetry with top-notch artisanal foods and drinks. In addition to her television series, which have a global reach, Allen is most recognised as a cookbook author. She has written between fourteen and sixteen—she can’t even recall how many off the top of her head—and is at work on her latest. ‘The working title is For God’s Sake, Grow Your Own Food,’ she chuckles. Only time will tell whether she’s serious about the title, but it’s entirely likely that she is. Allen knows she gets worked up when she talks about fresh food (‘I’m sounding like an old fuddy-duddy, aren’t I?’ she queries at one point), but she can’t help it. The consequences of not working toward a drastic change in the food supply are too dire to remain politely silent.
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There’s no denying that the past is very much present at Ballymaloe. The word itself is an ancient Gaelic term that translates to ‘the townland of sweet honey’.
hile spreading the Slow Food message, she’s become an ambassador of sorts for Irish food. Allen readily admits that Irish food has an appalling reputation, but then again, so do British and American foods, she counters. All of that is changing, though. Ireland now has an incredible artisanal food sector, including cheesemakers who’ve helped many of their US peers get started. The revival of Ireland’s culinary reputation is thanks to the kind of food grown at Ballymaloe—what Allen calls ‘lovely fresh food that’s in season’. And though she keeps an eye on international trends, she refuses to fall slavishly in step. ‘I have very little time for things like molecular gastronomy,’ she says, adding that she does respect the chefs who do it well. ‘It’s just not my type of food.’
The revival of Ireland’s culinary reputation is thanks to the kind of food grown at Ballymaloe— what Allen calls ‘lovely fresh food that’s in season’. Allen’s food is a lot like the woman herself: warm, straightforward, and down to earth. She’s as famous as any chef in the world, attests the globe-trotting Duffley, but she doesn’t wear that celebrity like most chefs of her renown. Duffley still recalls one of her first encounters with Allen as a perfect example of her nature: ‘I was eating alone in the dining room, and she invited me into the kitchen to eat with her family,’ Duffley says. ‘She didn’t know me; she just knew I was alone.’ That graciousness, she says, makes Allen remarkably approachable, a stark contrast to many high-profile American chefs. Allen laughs when asked how she’s escaped that pitfall—and that reputation. ‘It helps that I live in the country,’ she replies. ‘And in Ireland, we don’t have that same sort of hero worship when it comes to celebrities. Which is a jolly good thing, because there’s no need to get above yourself.’ Digging in the dirt on a daily basis is certainly one way to keep your feet on the ground. And it’s an essential part of learning how to cook, Allen argues, which is why her students get plenty of opportunity to do so. Participants in the intensive three-month programme even get their own plot of land to work. 84
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Whether they attend classes that are hours or months long, Allen expects her students to leave Ballymaloe with enhanced skills and more confidence in the kitchen. But most importantly, she wants them to understand that all good food comes from good sources. ‘If you start off with mass-produced, denatured food, you have to be a magician to make it taste good,’ she says. ‘But if you start with fresh fish and vegetables, for example, it’s so easy to make it good.’ And with the knowledge of what good food really is, Allen hopes more people will incorporate quality food and cooking time into their daily lives. It’s the secret to far more than just a tasty dinner. ‘There’s not much that can’t be solved when people are cooking together,’ she muses. Duffley has experienced the truth of that, which is why she’ll continue to return to the place and the people who captured her heart a decade and a half ago. ‘Cooking is the best gift you can give someone,’ she says. ‘And Ballymaloe epitomises everything good about it.’
For more information about Ballymaloe Cookery School, visit www. cookingisfun.ie. For more information about the Kerrygold Ballymaloe Litfest of Food and Wine, visit www.litfest.ie.
THE
ISLE B Y L U K E M U R R AY
Photo by Mark Furniss
Dead Man’s Cove, Inishbofin Photo by Mark Furniss
Inishbofin is an island that lies roughly eleven kilometres off the coast of north-west Connemara. A vibrant star in the galaxy of islands that guards Ireland’s Wild Atlantic Way, it is a place that has borne witness to a history as rich and interesting as anywhere else in the country. It is a history informed by an abundance of archaeological riches still visible on the island today. It is also a history fired by the traditions of mythology and storytelling, which are an integral part of Irish culture. The roots of its name alone (from the Irish Inis Bó Finne, meaning ‘Island of the White Cow’) give one a sense of the mysticism long associated with Inishbofin. The story goes that Inishbofin was a floating place, neither anchored nor tethered in one location, and eternally shrouded in an ocean mist. One night, two fishermen lost at sea in a heavy fog drifted ashore on this enchanted island. They lit a fire, its flames broke the spell that burdened the place, and at once the fog cleared. It was then they observed an old woman driving a white cow along a stony beach that separated the sea from a lake (this would be the North Beach of Inishbofin, between the ocean and Loch Bó Finne, the ‘Lake of the White Cow’). She struck the cow with a stick, and both she and the beast turned to stone. Oral tradition maintains that the woman and the white cow will emerge from the lake as a forewarning of impending disaster. From a beginning as haunting and mysterious as this, the island was never going to be a dull place—quite the opposite, as it turns out—but it is as enchanting now as it was then, ready to cast its spell on anyone lucky enough to find themselves here.
The Tower stands strong against the storms of winter. Photo by Marie Coyne
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THE TOWERING COVES AND CLIFFS OF WESTQUARTER AND THE NORTHERN COASTLINE, CARVED BY A FURIOUS OCEAN OVER MILLENNIA, PROVIDE A STARK CONTRAST TO THE SPRAWLING GOLDEN BEACHES ON THE SHELTERED EAST SIDE.
Setting aside the folklore, the island is known to have been inhabited for several thousand years. Evidence has been found of Bronze Age (c.3200 BC–c.600 BC) settlements, and the island has several promontory fort sites that are recognised as being from the Iron Age (1200 BC–1 BC). These are dotted around the coast of the island at strategic locations, the most formidable of which is at Dún Mór (‘Big Fort’) in Westquarter, a site located on the highest cliffs of the island. In terms of tangible recorded history, the first significant appearance of Inishbofin in the written record was in the seventh century. Saint Colman of Lindisfarne sought out the island for the creation of a monastery after a dispute with the Catholic Church in England. Originally from the west of Ireland, he left with his followers and came to Inishbofin in AD 665. A stone chapel was built on the site of his monastery in the fourteenth century and still stands today, now surrounded by the island’s graveyard.
The ruin of Cromwell’s Barracks guards the harbour mouth on Inishbofin’s southern coast. Photo by Stephanie Salmon
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The famed pirate queen, Granuaile (Grace O’Malley), also appears in the history and traditions of Inishbofin. One site called Dún Gráinne bears her name, and folklore maintains that she controlled the island in alliance with a Spanish pirate, Don Alonzo Bosco. It is said they stretched a chain from her fort across the harbour’s mouth to his stronghold on the other side to entrap those who entered and also to keep out unwanted visitors. Plunder and misfortune were sure to follow for those who became snared inside. Where Don Bosco’s settlement was reputed to have been, the still-impressive remains of Cromwell’s Barracks (commonly referred to as the Castle) can be seen now. Inishbofin was one of the last Royalist-held territories against the New Model Army of Oliver Cromwell’s Parliamentarians as they swept across Ireland, leaving devastation in their wake during the English Civil War in the mid 1600s. Upon the capture of Inishbofin, they built the imposing fortress that stands defiantly to this day, watching over the mouth of the island’s safe harbour nearly four centuries later. It was used as a staging post for Catholic priests who were being expelled from Ireland to the Caribbean.
Throughout its history, Inishbofin has sustained itself on the traditional industries of fishing and farming. It is difficult to imagine now, but at the height of its population in the nineteenth century, the island supported around a thousand people. Inishbofin was also used as a base for many more fishermen from the surrounding islands and the Connemara coast; however, the primary industry on the island today is tourism. This is a market that, from the first semi-regular passenger trips that the poet Richard Murphy ran in the 1950s, has slowly and steadily grown to accommodate around forty thousand visitors each year. Inishbofin receives visitors year-round, but the season really gets going at Easter, when all of the hospitality businesses throw open their doors once more to welcome guests, both old and new.
The serenity of a safe harbor reflects the island’s beauty. Photo by Stephanie Salmon
So, what is it that draws people to this island of such mythical beginnings? You could find a different reason for every day of the year. Chief among them is the island itself, as a physical landscape. It is breathtakingly beautiful, a place that is best explored over several days or even weeks, for even in a relatively small area (five and a half by three kilometres), it is a remarkably diverse environment. The towering coves and cliffs of Westquarter and the northern coastline, carved by a furious ocean over millennia, provide a stark contrast to the sprawling golden beaches on the sheltered east side. Climbing the hills of Westquarter or Knock gives one command of a view hardly rivalled on the western seaboard of Ireland. It brings the coastlines of Connemara and Mayo—with mountains, hills, and islands beyond counting—together in a glorious panoramic tapestry, a vista that eludes mere written description. To look to the west is to stare at a horizon interrupted only by the neighbouring island of Inishark, bereft of inhabitants since 1960, whose empty and ruined houses silhouetted against the Atlantic skyline serve as a constant reminder of the fragility of island living. Beyond her quiet fields, more than three thousand kilometres of frothing ocean must be navigated to make landfall once again in Newfoundland. For those with a thirst for adventure, Inishbofin is a place that each year seeks to offer more refreshment. To such spirits, each day can bring a new method of exploration and thrill-seeking: hire a bike and take to the road; spend a few hours on horseback, trekking the coast and the hills; experience a kayaking or snorkelling tour of the pristine Blueway Trail in one of Ireland’s most incredible natural harbours; take a guided historical walking tour and discover even more of the island’s heritage; charter an island-hopping rigid inflatable boat (RIB) tour and visit the seal colony; ramble along three National Looped Walks; spend some time getting hands-on with a visit to a ConnemaraLife.ie
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ABOVE ALL ELSE, IT IS THE PEOPLE THAT MAKE THE ISLAND SUCH A SPECIAL PLACE. LOCALS WILL HAPPILY STOP TO TALK AND ANSWER QUESTIONS, PROVIDE ADVICE, TELL STORIES, AND WELCOME VISITORS TO THESE SHORES. working island farm; step back in time with the Heritage Museum; immerse yourself in the ornithological riches of the island with a bird-watching weekend—the list of wonderful activities goes on and on and grows each year. All of this, however, merely touches upon what makes Inishbofin so special. A recent project initiated by the community and run by EcoTourism Ireland has brought a determination to promote tourism that is sustainable and environmentally conscious and that benefits the local economy. The island is moving toward being as self-sufficient as possible, reducing its impact in terms of waste production by running projects aimed at recycling materials, and generally trying to do things in the right way to ensure a future that does not negatively affect the beautiful natural environment. Inishbofin is Ireland’s first ‘Leave No Trace’ island, partnering with the Leave No Trace outdoor educational organisation to promote responsible tourism worldwide. It is the first Fairtrade Island in the Republic of Ireland and has developed its own unique Inishbofin Fairtrade coffee. The diverse schedule of festivals throughout the summer celebrates all that is best about every aspect of the island’s culture, including its music, arts, seafaring, and food. Indeed, the island is famous nationally as a centre for traditional Irish music through its indigenous musicians and also through the hundreds of visitors who come every year to perform. Inishbofin’s bars, restaurants, and hotels serve the finest of island produce where possible throughout the summer, culminating in the fantastic Bia Bó Finne Food Festival every October.
A glorious panoramic tapestry seen from atop Cnóc Mór Photo by Marie Coyne
Above all else, it is the people that make the island such a special place. Locals will happily stop to talk and answer questions, provide advice, tell stories, and welcome visitors to these shores. Inishbofin people share their beautiful home with so many year after year, and yet they are unstintingly welcoming for all that. So step aboard the ferry, leave behind the cares of mainland living, and see for yourself all that the Island of the White Cow and its people have to offer.
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An Inishbofin púcán, a traditional boat of Connemara, in full sail Photo by Marie Coyne
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CLIFDEN STATION HOUSE Connemara clifdenstationhouse.com Clifden, Connemara, Co. Galway, Ireland call +353 (0)95 21699
BY AMANDA CROWLEY PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY OF THE MARCONI COMPANY
History allows us to look back and appreciate the enormous strides achieved by pioneers in science and technology. Sadly, stories are often forgotten, replaced by the next great advance or discovery, or buried in a bog of compounding layers built upon that first spark of genius. But recently, historians in western Ireland have come together to unearth the past and share the accomplishments of inventor Guglielmo Marconi. Long before Ireland was known as the European Silicon Valley, Connemara helped lay the groundwork for the mobile phone that we can’t seem to live without.
With the help of the Connemara Chamber of Commerce, the Clifden Chamber of Commerce, the Galway County Council, and Fáilte Ireland’s Wild Atlantic Way, a small team has begun to memorialise Marconi and his tenacious spirit that connected two continents by way of radio telegraphy. The team includes Shane Joyce, noted radio archaeologist; historian Michael Gibbons, one of Ireland’s leading field archaeologists; and Christopher Shannon, former president of the Clifden Chamber of Commerce. GUGLIELMO MARCONI Marconi was the son of Italian country gentleman Giuseppe Marconi and Annie Jameson, of the Jameson Irish Whiskey family. He was born 25 April 1874 in Bologna, Italy, and it was there he began his work on radio and wireless communication as a young man, studying the works of Hertz, Maxwell, and others whose works challenged his imagination. Marconi later moved to England to further his research, gaining legal and scientific recognition and even winning a shared Nobel Prize in Physics in 1909, sixteen years after he began experimenting with electromagnetic waves.
Ruins from the once-bustling Clifden Marconi Station
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LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION Marconi’s original telegraph stations were built in Cornwall, England, and Cape Cod, Massachusetts, but when the distance proved too great, he was forced to reconsider locations. A grant from the Canadian government, equating to about €1 million today, allowed him to construct a station in Glace Bay, Nova Scotia. Knowing Cornwall would still be too far, Marconi ventured to the wild Irish west coast, finding both the ideal distance and conditions in Derrygimlagh near the town of Clifden. The station began operating in April 1907. ‘Connemara is not an area most people would associate with technology,’ Joyce says. ‘The climate is considered wild, but its location and distance to North America, in addition to the unobstructed boglands, was ideal for sending and receiving messages.’ When looking at
the site today, it’s easy to imagine what Marconi saw: empty boglands sprawling for miles and the spirit of determination embedded in the earth. He could envision a massive operation with a condenser house, tall transmitter towers, workers’ quarters, generators, peat boilers, and a small railway. On the morning of 15 October 15 1907, only the tapping of a message by the duty operator could be heard in the Irish station. At exactly 11.30 a.m., a message was transmitted to the New York Times. Its successful reception in Glace Bay launched the commercial signalling between continents and officially opened the Clifden Marconi Station. Shortly after, a congratulatory message was sent from Glace Bay confirming receipt. Ten thousand words were transmitted across the Atlantic that first day, thanks to Marconi’s genius and tenacity and the hard-working Irishmen powering the station. Marconi’s telegraph brought not only excitement but also new employment to Connemara, as local men who were skilled at cutting, stacking, and drying turf from nearby bogs provided a ready and eager
workforce to harvest fuel for the station. (Turf fires have provided heat in Connemara for centuries, and anyone who has visited will recognise the welcoming scent immediately.) Men were also employed to build the Marconi Light Railway for transporting turf from the bog to the station’s furnaces. ADVANCING TECHNOLOGY Ireland inspired Marconi, and he seized the opportunity to grow while in Connemara. In 1911, Marconi opened a second radio station seven miles away in the village of Letterfrack, installing a separate directional antenna system. Much like a walkie-talkie, messages would be sent in one direction for a number of hours, and then stopped to receive messages for a few hours, allowing messages to be sent to and received from different directions. Two antennas were installed: one aligned toward North America, the second facing Clifden. With the help of engineers R. N. Vyvyan and C. S. Franklin, Marconi discovered how to dissipate interference from the local radio signals, leaving the transatlantic lines open. Financial restraints caused the Letterfrack station to close in 1917, but the work done there was monumental. While Marconi’s invention sparked intrigue and garnered popular interest, it also proved essential in nautical life. Jack Phillips, senior radio operator aboard the RMS Titanic, had worked at the Marconi station in Derrygimlagh before taking up assignment on the fateful ship. Twenty-six-year-old Phillips lost his life on the Titanic after sending
Clockwise from top left: Engineer B. J. Witt and local workman Peter Guy conduct research near mast No. 3 Currywongaun Hill. Carolyn Lloyd and Alan Joyce re-enact research being done at the Letterfrack station, April 2014. Sheep graze on the Derrygimlagh boglands. The Derrygimlagh landscape offers breathtaking views spotted with tiny lakes and peat bogs.
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The sea fog broke as the plane approached the Irish coast, and Brown spotted a railway below. He scribbled a note telling Alcock to follow it. Fearing their competition had already touched down, Alcock and Brown decided to land in what they believed was an open field; however, it was actually the Derrygimlagh bog, and once the plane’s wheels touched down, they began sinking. On the morning of 15 June 1919, despite their unorthodox landing, Alcock and Brown became the first people to fly continuously across the Atlantic. Marconi station workers, who had tried to wave the pilots away from the bog, ran to their aid. ‘Yesterday we were in America,’ Alcock told them. When the station workers spotted a small bag of mail onboard, the magnitude of the historic event began to set in. With great honor, they sent the message from the Derrygimlagh Marconi Station stating, ‘Vickers Vimy aircraft landed Clifden 8.40 GMT from Saint John’s. Alcock.’ Alcock and Brown remained in Clifden only for the day, but landing at Marconi’s station in Derrygimlagh allowed the news to spread quickly and globally, adding another technological milestone to Connemara history.
numerous distress messages and refusing to leave his post until the power went out. Phillips sent the SOS and CQD messages still commonly used by Marconi operators, signifying a general call to all ships requesting immediate assistance. Survivors of the tragic event of 15 April 1912 owe their lives to Phillips’s unwavering dedication and to Marconi’s invention. For all his success, Marconi also faced setbacks. Despite the fact that both his mother and his first wife were Irish, he was perceived as owning and operating an English company. During the Irish War of Independence, rebels cut down telegraph lines used for transmitting information for fear the company would contact British troops and destroyed Marconi’s remaining station in July of 1922. Marconi’s work in Connemara forever changed the way the world communicated, laying the groundwork for the massive communication networks of today. To honor his legacy, wireless stations worldwide observed a two-minute radio silence upon Marconi’s death in Rome on 20 July 1937. Top left: Vanishing Point at the old Derrygimlagh station power house. Top right: Engineers observe a total solar eclipse on 17 April 1912 from the Clifden Marconi Station. Bottom: The Marconi Company brought welcome employment and excitement to the town of Clifden. At the time, Clifden’s population was 900.
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ALCOCK AND BROWN As Marconi was changing transatlantic communication, Alcock and Brown were cementing their place in transatlantic transportation. Pilot Captain John ‘Jack’ Alcock heard that the Daily Mail was offering a £10,000 prize to the first aviator to cross the Atlantic in less than seventy-two hours. He employed the help of navigator Lieutenant Arthur Whitten Brown for the journey. The pair travelled to Newfoundland along with a number of other teams, hurriedly inspected their Vickers Vimy bomber plane, and with the aircraft’s bomb bay full of extra fuel, took off at 4.12 p.m. GMT on 14 June 1919. The men endured freezing temperatures, ice, fog, and even a broken airspeed indicator during the journey.
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THE DERRYGIMLAGH SIGNATURE DISCOVERY POINT The recent Derrygimlagh Signature Discovery Point project began much like Marconi’s, with a comprehensive survey of the site. Archaeological digs were conducted, led by Gibbons. Joyce claims the ‘timing was fortunate for the project’ as grant money was available, but without passion, it would never have begun. When complete, visitors will be able to enjoy a four-and-a-half-kilometre boardwalk and new paths featuring breathtaking views of boglands, the nearby lake, and the remnants of the historic site of Marconi’s first station in Connemara. Designers, keeping the Irish weather in mind, planned for covers over three of the six information stations along the tour. These stations will display historic images and information in both English and Irish. The site will also feature several ‘historioscopes’ designed by Irish artists Anne Cleary and Denis Connolly. The devices are like periscopes; viewers will look through and see images of the Marconi station condenser house, the railway, and the workers’ bungalows where they originally stood—a creative way to recreate the historic landscape without changing the current terrain. A ‘panoramascope’ will accompany the historioscopes, showing the crash landing of Alcock and Brown’s plane. Archaeological expeditions are ongoing, and additional discoveries have been made on-site, including the uncovering of the railway turntable used for
10 daily services between Galway and Connemara with onward connections to Dublin and Dublin Airport MARCONI’S WORK IN CONNEMARA FOREVER CHANGED THE WAY THE WORLD COMMUNICATED, LAYING THE GROUNDWORK FOR THE MASSIVE COMMUNICATION NETWORKS OF TODAY.
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bringing turf to the station. The team hopes the site can remain an archaeological school where students can learn about the history of Marconi and the landscape he chose for the station. The Derrygimlagh Signature Discovery Point opened in May 2016, and an official grand opening ceremony with members of Fáilte Ireland in attendance is planned when the site opens to the public this summer. Going forward, the chamber will continue to raise funds and support this landmark, with plans to commemorate the hundredth anniversary of Alcock and Brown’s landing in 2019. Marconi, Alcock, and Brown dared to dream, and their achievements continue to inspire innovators and travellers today. If your mobile phone vibrates in your pocket while you walk through Derrygimlagh, thank those who paved the way and helped make that technology possible.
Cork Airport
Serving Letterfrack, Cleggan, Clifden, Canal Bridge, Recess, Maam Cross, Oughterard, Rosscahill, Moycullen and Galway Top: Aerial view of what is now Derrygimlagh Signature Discovery Point from November 2011 Bottom: Marconi wireless technology used to transmit and receive messages
For more information call 091 564164 or see www.citylink.ie
ON BOARD ON BOARD
Kylemore Abbey sits in the heart of Connemara, welcoming visitors to the west of Ireland with its rich history and beautiful landscape. Photo courtesy of Kylemore Abbey
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f mortar and bricks could talk, what stories would be told by the walls of Kylemore Abbey? For almost 150 years, its halls and stairways have witnessed the lives of many people, all united behind the granite facade to become part of one intriguing history—not just of the wealthy businessman and his family who built Kylemore, but also of the workmen, the servants, the school girls, the Benedictine nuns, and the many visitors who come to Kylemore each year, all with their own histories and stories to tell. In 1867, the castle first rose up from the pristine Connemara countryside. Mitchell Henry, a surgeon, businessman, politician, and philanthropist, had the castle built for his beautiful wife, Margaret. His love for Margaret and their large family is apparent in every detail of the vast estate. Margaret laid the first brick using a beautifully engraved ceremonial trowel, and her family crest, that of the Vaughan family, hangs to this day in the hands of an angel above the castle door. The seventy-room castle boasted Italian decor, a magnificent ballroom, a library, a drawing room, and a dining room draped in black and gold silks. The estate also had its own dark room, telegraph office, and fire brigade of scarlet-clad volunteer firemen. A mile from the castle, a magnificent eight-acre walled garden with twenty-one heated glasshouses was tended by up to forty gardeners.
age of forty-five, which occurred during a family holiday to Egypt, and later, the horrific death of Henry’s daughter Geraldine in an accident a few miles from Kylemore. Henry never could have imagined having his daughter’s remains shipped for burial in America or having his wife embalmed in Cairo. In time, a modest mausoleum was prepared for Margaret in a sheltered spot along the castle’s lakeside avenue, where she and Mitchell both now rest. When Kylemore Castle was sold in 1903, the Duke and Duchess of Manchester arrived to take up residence. The castle was virtually torn apart in the couple’s rush to redecorate. It is reputed that the duke finally lost the castle in a late-night card game. Although apocryphal, the story fits with the public’s image of the flighty duke, who left the castle under a cloud of debt in 1913.
The Henry family enjoyed a pampered lifestyle of expensive hobbies such as hunting, yachting, and photography punctuated by picnics and balls. Archive photographs show the sons, dressed in Scottish tweeds and looking the part of countrified young gentlemen, posing with fishing gillies and gamekeepers. For the five Henry daughters, Kylemore provided a break from the formality of London life, and they too enjoyed the outdoor pursuits of the ‘Irish Highlands’. The local people were in awe of every detail of Kylemore’s transformation as it was built. Accustomed to life in meagre windowless cabins, even the walled tiles of the estate’s abattoir were a wonder to them. The well-paid work provided at Kylemore was a godsend for people who lived incredibly hard and precarious lives in the rugged countryside. The Henry tenure brought a period of security and improvement to the area. Great wealth, however, gave no immunity from tragedy, and the Henrys suffered more than their fair share. First came Margaret’s death at the
Photo by Lucy Mashburn
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Next to come to Kylemore, in 1920, were the Benedictine nuns who had fled war-torn Europe when their ancient abbey in Ypres, Belgium, finally succumbed to shelling. In 1922, an international boarding school was opened in the Abbey, and the nuns, who lived a quiet life, were joined by their first intake of school girls. The girls brought youth, laughter, and light both into the lives of the nuns and into the building itself. Most days of the year, the Abbey would have up to a hundred girls tramping the stairs, performing plays, and giggling in their dorms at night. In 2010, the last boarders left Kylemore Abbey, and once again a hush descended upon the classrooms and stairwells. Downstairs, however, it was a different story. Ever since the nuns began to welcome paying guests back in the 1950s, there has been a steady stream of visitors touring Kylemore. Spontaneous wedding proposals, inspired by the surroundings and the romantic history, are not unusual. Staff members regularly meet with couples who got engaged at the castle or spent their honeymoons in the nuns’ guest house in the 1950s. People often come to Kylemore looking for something more than the average holiday experience. They are looking for a sense of connection, for meaning in the stories, the landscape, and the history, and for a chance to reflect. Their experiences, their prayers and hopes, and what they leave behind become part of the ever-growing tapestry of lives woven into the continuing story of Kylemore Abbey.
Br i n g i n g No t r e D a m e t o Ky l e m o r e Ab b e y Summer of 2016 will see Kylemore Abbey revert to its traditional role as a place of learning. A group of American students will arrive, heralding a new era for the iconic building. In a unique meeting of minds and cultures, the Benedictine nuns of Kylemore Abbey have entered into a partnership with one of America’s most famous and prestigious Catholic universities, Notre Dame. The arrangement will see Notre Dame students attend residential classes at Kylemore, which will include creative writing, environmental fieldwork, literature, language, and spiritual retreats. It will also offer them the opportunity to immerse themselves in the beautiful and inspiring setting of western Ireland. In 1998, Notre Dame established the Keough-Naughton Centre for Irish Studies in Dublin. The centre operates as a ‘global gateway’ for Notre Dame students in Ireland. It hosts seminars and lectures from a broad range of Irish and international academics, artists, musicians, and thinkers. The centre provides visiting Notre Dame students with the fullest possible experience of Ireland and what it means to be Irish; however, it does not provide residential courses such as will be available at Kylemore. An extensive refurbishment plan has been under way at the Kylemore estate since winter 2015, centring on the area to the east of the building formerly known as Saint Joseph’s boarding school. When Kylemore Abbey was first built as the Henrys’ home, the east wing was the location of sumptuous Turkish baths. In 1959, the wing was badly damaged by fire and rebuilt as Saint Joseph’s. It will now become a modern functional space, providing the high standards of accommodation and learning to which Notre Dame’s students are accustomed. Plans are also in place for a new monastic building to be built for the nuns, which will better serve their needs. The new monastery will be located next to the Benedictine church, facing out onto the lake and the Kylemore Valley, not far from the Abbey at the heart of the estate. Famed worldwide as the home of the Fighting Irish American football team, Notre Dame has a connection with Ireland that features very strongly in its identity. This Irishness manifests itself in more ways than just individuals wearing green. The Keough-Naughton Institute for Irish Studies at Notre Dame is dedicated exclusively to Irish culture, literature, language, and politics. Many Notre Dame students learn to speak and express themselves in the Irish language, which is just one example of how Ireland has been brought to the university’s main campus in Notre Dame, Indiana. The Fighting Irish catchphrase is given more than lip service, as the university now uses it as a way to express the attitude it wishes students to adapt in
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THE ARRANGEMENT WILL SEE N O T R E D A M E S T U D E N T S AT T E N D R E S I D E N T I A L C L A S S E S AT K Y L E M O R E , W H I C H W I L L I N C LU D E C R E AT I V E W R I T I N G , E N V I R O N M E N TA L F I E L DWO R K , L I T E R AT U R E , L A N G UA G E , A N D S P I R I T UA L R E T R E AT S .
Henry Mitchell built the Gothic Church in memory of his beloved wife, Margaret. Photo by Lucy Mashburn
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their learning journey. Notre Dame students are challenged not just to fight for success on the football field, but also to fight for knowledge, understanding, equality and justice, and a real connection with the college’s symbolic home, Ireland. Notre Dame describes itself as an ‘unashamedly Catholic University’ where the majority of students live on campus in single-sex dormitories, and this ethos will continue at Kylemore. For past pupils of Kylemore Abbey, this all sounds quite familiar. The school’s alumnae, now spread around the globe, will be watching with interest—and perhaps more than a little envy—to see how Kylemore’s latest generation of students fares. Notre Dame aspires to widen the students’ horizons and give them an experience of Ireland outside of Dublin. There is little doubt that all who spend time at Kylemore will be affected by the surroundings. Here, a learning environment can be created where lifelong friendships will unfold, and the learning experience will be enriched and enhanced by history and natural beauty.
The award-winning Victorian Walled Gardens at Kylemore Abbey cover nearly six acres. Photo courtesy of Kylemore Abbey
Over the years, Notre Dame has played host to some very influential Irish people on their home campus, including poets W. B. Yeats and Seamus Heaney, past presidents Mary Robinson and Mary McAleese, Taoiseach Enda Kenny, and the band U2. This tradition will continue at Kylemore, as an impressive line-up of speakers and guest tutors from Ireland’s cultural sector and academic spheres will be invited to contribute to the students’ experience.
about the future of the estate. The partnership with Notre Dame secures Kylemore Abbey both as the home of the Benedictine nuns and as an essential contributor to the economy of Connemara. Notre Dame will now have a home in the west of Ireland, ensuring that the two-way relationship can only grow stronger as time goes on.
In 2015, Taoiseach Enda Kenny attended a ceremony at Kylemore Abbey to launch the beginning of the restoration and put an end to speculation
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ROAD TRIPPING THE WILD ATLANTIC WAY STO RY A N D P H OTO G RA P H Y BY N I C H O L AS G RU N DY
The beach at Dog's Bay backs directly onto the beach at Gurteen Bay to form a geographical formation known as a tombolo.
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Lettermore reflecting beautifully in Ballinakill Harbour on a still morning.
T R A V E L L I N G I S A L L A B O U T T H E J O U R N E Y. Sure, it’s nice to focus on one place for a good period of time, but you’re not exactly embarking on a great expedition when you’re camped out in the same spot. To travel inherently means to cover a distance, and nothing beats the classic road trip when your goal is to conduct a sizeable journey. Hitting the tarmac with four wheels—or two—allows you to visit a huge section of a new region while seeing it all along the way. Among such trips, coastal routes have long been favourites. We’ve all heard of the famous tours mirroring the sea in places like America, Italy, and Australia, but now there’s a new player in town. This rookie route has deserved its own waterfront trail for years, and its turn has finally come.
in Ireland, Killary is by far the most impressive, with mountains dropping like cliffs into the deep sea. During winter, snow-capped mountains such as Mweelrea emerge from the mist to tower above the ocean. Meanwhile, at the mouth of the inlet, local fishermen depart Rosroe Pier during all seasons to bring back the region’s famed fare. Only a short distance west of Rosroe, the landscape changes drastically. The area’s first hidden gemstone soon appears: Glassilaun Beach. The beautiful bay represents the start of a series of exquisite white-sand
Ireland’s Wild Atlantic Way is a newly designated seaside roadway stretching out to a staggering 2,500 kilometres (1,500 miles). Commencing up in County Donegal, the Atlantic Way hugs the jagged coastline as it passes through eight other counties before finishing just short of Cork. Halfway along, however, is where the journey truly becomes majestic as it passes through the Connemara region, arguably the most brilliantly shining facet of the Emerald Isle. My wife and I recently set out to drive along this three-hundred-kilometre section to see precisely what all the fuss is about. Venturing across Joyce Country in north-western County Galway, one is quickly met with fantastic views as the mountains of northern Connemara unfold over the horizon. Our journey began in the tiny village of Leenane at the head of Killary Harbour. The region is, in fact, a glacial fjard (not to be mistaken with fjord), at which mountains, rivers, and the ocean converge, piling atop one another. One of only three glacial depressions
The Wild Atlantic Way is well signposted throughout Connemara.
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Sunsets along the Connemara coast are spectacular year-round.
BU R N I N G R ED AS IT DRO PP ED FROM SIG HT, THE SETTI NG SU N A N N O UNC ED THE END OF ONE OF THE WORLD ’S G REATEST ST R E TC H ES O F COASTAL DRIVING. beaches stretching along the Connemara coast. Leaving the secluded turquoise waters, visitors are almost immediately treated to further belts of sand at Renvyle Beach before wheeling southward through Tullycross. Descending around the slopes of Letter Hill (also called Tully Mountain), the craggy Twelve Bens range (also called the Twelve Pins) rises before you, heralding your arrival into the Letterfrack area. The village of Letterfrack is a perfect spot to take a break from your journey, offering ample options for delicious dinners and overnight accommodations. I managed to catch a glorious sunrise by running halfway up the side of Diamond Hill in nearby Connemara National Park. From on high, hikers—or runners—are gifted with astounding vistas over the mirror-like waters of Ballinakill Harbour as white Connemara ponies munch away at the hillside. Whether you plod or sprint up for the view, it’s the perfect place for stretching the legs before another day behind the wheel. The next port of call on our whistle-stop tour was Cleggan. From here, you can opt to catch the local ferry out to the island of Inishbofin, another jewel studding the Connemara coast. Further west, drivers hit a peninsula and loop around remote Aughrus Lough before heading south to Omey Island. Connected by a sandbar only at low tide, Omey is 104
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completely cut off from the mainland much of the time. During winter storms, the island’s few residents can become separated for days on end. The tiny landmass is definitely worth a quick visit, but please check local tide charts and weather warnings first, and remember to be cognizant of the time you must return or risk missing the last ferry. Of particular note here is the annual horse race held on the sandy isthmus each summer. The largest town in Connemara, Clifden is the perfect spot to sit in the sun and refuel before continuing on your road trip. Jutting out to the west of the town is Sky Road, which loops around the top of a peninsula to offer breathtaking views over the open sea and the area’s many bays. The eleven-kilometre route is one of the many sign-posted attractions along the Wild Atlantic Way. One cannot miss the trademark zigzag of the tall iron markers. The circuit seems rather aptly named when staring up at the words ‘Sky Road’ silhouetted against the gleaming heavens above. Jaunting southwest from Clifden brings you past the extensive Derrygimlagh bog, a flat expanse of typical Irish Atlantic peatland. Seemingly innocuous, the region is actually full of history, including being the landing site of Alcock and Brown’s first transatlantic flight and the location of Marconi’s famed intercontinental wireless station. Continuing through the village of Ballyconneely brings you to Bunowen Bay, a quiet cluster of houses and piers perched atop ferocious seas. At the head of the bay, Doon Hill sits above stunning beaches and, nearby, visitors can take in the eerie sight of the ruins of Bunowen Castle. The remainder of the Wild Atlantic Way generally winds eastward toward the conclusion of Connemara. The next point of note is the region surrounding the village of Roundstone. The closely knit community sits
wedged directly between the ocean and the mammoth Errisbeg Mountain. Roundstone is another perfect overnight rest stop, providing plenty of bed-andbreakfasts and offering picturesque sea views. After enjoying a menu brimming with local seafood, we took a short stroll around the town as tricolour buntings fluttered overhead in preparation for St. Patrick’s Day. The towns and villages dotting the coast boast a number of events and festivals each year; we were particularly fortunate enough to pass through during Ireland’s national holiday. On our final day tracing the twisting seashore of Ireland’s adventurous west, we spun back to the nearby beaches of Dog’s Bay and Gurteen Bay. The two stretches of white sand run parallel to each other, sitting back-to-back to form a tombolo. Avid hikers can ascend the slopes of Errisbeg to gain a glimpse of the unique formation, which almost resembles a palm tree jutting into the ocean. Just above the beach at Dog’s Bay sits the local cemetery, resting peacefully between mountain and sea and offering meditative panoramic views. The region was hit hard by the Irish famine, with many natives departing for America during that time. As such, many in the States can trace their family names back to the multitude of weathered headstones in similar seaside clusters all along the Atlantic coast of Ireland. Even my wife was fascinated to stumble upon proof that her own family originally hailed from precisely this region of Connemara. With the coast to our right, we rolled on toward Galway City, passing through some final highlights
Rusheen Bay entering the ocean at Silverstrand.
to cap off the trip. Wrapping around Cashel Bay, the mountain ranges of the Maumturks and the Twelve Bens loomed over the choppy waters below. Stone bridges passed below while we travelled through Carna, Lettermore peninsula, and Coral Strand near Carraroe. Soon after, Galway Bay emerged as our eyes scanned southward across the waves. We concluded our voyage atop the hill at Silverstrand, just short of Galway City. Burning red as it dropped from sight, the setting sun announced the end of one of the world’s greatest stretches of coastal driving. Meanwhile, jet trails swept across the deep blue skies above, full of passengers on their own journeys high above the Wild Atlantic Way.
The Twelve Bens viewed behind Streamstown Bay along the Sky Road.
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THE EMERALD COAST MEETS THE EMERALD ISLE By TORI PHELPS
Photo by David Steele / Shutterstock
M
ost college students who travel to Ireland come back with tales of castles visited and pints of Guinness drunk. Few return home debating whether the highlight of the trip was having an audience with the Irish prime minister or getting notes from a director with the Royal Shakespeare Company. University of West Florida (UWF) students fall into the latter category. UWF’s Irish Experience Program isn’t a generic study-abroad opportunity. It’s a life-changing trip for arts students, who immerse themselves into the country’s rich cultural traditions and learn lessons that change the way they see the world—and themselves—forever.
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The spark for this programme linking the Emerald Coast (as Florida’s north-western shores are affectionately known) to the Emerald Isle was kindled through a casual conversation between colleagues. Howard Reddy, a UWF voice professor and the director of the Office of Community Engagement, suggested to Department of Theatre chair Charles Houghton that they take students to the Carlow Arts Festival in Ireland. The suggestion was off-the-cuff, but the destination wasn’t. Carlow is Reddy’s hometown, and he’s well versed in the acclaimed festival’s stellar offerings. Not only was Houghton interested, he took the suggestion one step further. He proposed that the students perform an American play at the festival and stage an Irish play upon their return.
Of course, it wasn’t just up to them. The creation of a new international programme needed endorsement from further up the academic chain of command. Luckily, Dr. Brendan Kelly, vice president for university advancement, was immediately on board. Coincidentally, Kelly lived in Carlow during his own studies abroad and is a staunch believer in exposing students to unique learning opportunities. ‘Those don’t necessarily occur in traditional classrooms,’ he says. ‘That’s especially true for fine and performing arts students.’ As an administrator, though, Kelly’s decisions have to be filtered through the lens of increasing UWF’s value to the local community, as well as to the wider global community. His yardstick question: ‘Will north-west Florida be a better place because of this programme?’ In the case of the proposed Irish Experience Program, the answer could only be yes. Allowing students to showcase their talents on a world stage and forge international connections had a long list of pros and no cons. And so began the work of transforming the idea into a concrete agenda. As it turned out, Reddy’s knowledge base was much broader than just the logistics of the Carlow Arts Festival. His impressive connections, born from a lifetime of voice and theatre collaborations, produced an itinerary beyond what anyone—except Reddy himself—could have imagined. He began by reaching out to the artistic director of the Carlow Arts Festival, a nearly four-decade-old cultural extravaganza encompassing visual art, music, theatre, literature, and history. Reddy also got in touch with the Carlow Little Theatre and Carlow College, which ultimately served as the students’ headquarters during their stay. The Irish Experience Program began to take shape as a series of cross-cultural partnerships designed around education, performance, and creativity. It would be rigorous from an academic perspective and include an actionpacked touring schedule.
time to meet with American college kids? It was thanks to a combination of Reddy’s powers of persuasion and the PM’s own deep-seated belief in the programme’s goals. ‘The United States of America and Ireland enjoy a strong bond of friendship that crosses educational, cultural, and economic ties,’ Kenny shares. ‘It is important to us to maintain this relationship by building new bridges between our nations and to strengthen our centuries-old friendship. As such, it was a pleasure to meet Howard and the students during the inaugural visit of the University of West Florida’s Irish Experience Program.’ An unmitigated success from start to finish, there was no doubt the programme would become a permanent addition to UWF. The second outing expanded to include students from the Art Department, as well. The schedule expanded, too, incorporating more workshops and programmes that took the experience to new heights. The second programme’s trip to County Donegal to research the play the students would perform back at UWF was even more powerful than the first. Among their adventures in this north-western area of Ireland, the setting for Brian Friel’s Dancing at Lughnasa, was spending a day at a restored farmhouse-cum-heritage centre that was remarkably similar to the home described in the play. But the highlight for theatre major Kerry Sandell was the group’s interaction with a Donegal butcher whose shop the late Friel frequented. It seems Friel, a Northern Ireland native, wanted to get a feel for the local language and its colloquialisms. His solution was to sit at the butcher shop for hours, simply listening to people speak. ‘We got as close to talking to Mr. Friel as we could in being with this gentleman,’ Sandell says. ‘And afterward, I wondered of the play’s characters, “Is this one based on someone who used to come here and get meat on Friday?”’
All it needed was participants. There was no lack of interest there. Three years ago, nine theatre students, accompanied by Reddy and Houghton, made the inaugural month-long trip to Carlow. The first leg included some get-to-know-you touring around Ireland. The students had decided to perform Martin McDonagh’s The Beauty Queen of Leenane when they returned to Florida, so the group travelled west to Connemara and Leenane itself. It was an important element, Reddy says, because Irish writers and poets are often affected by landscape in a way that can be difficult for the non-Irish to grasp. ‘The west coast of Ireland is beautiful; it’s where the landscape is at its most dramatic,’ he explains. ‘The area was a shock to the system coming from Florida, but in the creative arts, that’s what you need.’ Afterward, the crew returned to Carlow for the festival. There, students performed two comedies by James McLure, Laundry and Bourbon and Lone Star, at the George Bernard Shaw Theatre, directed by Sam Osheroff. They also took in the Festival of Writing and Ideas, a corollary to the Carlow Arts Festival founded by Vivienne Guinness (yes, of that Guinness family) that brings together iconic writers and thinkers. The trip ended in Dublin with a once-in-a-lifetime meeting with Enda Kenny, the Irish prime minister. Why would the country’s leader take Photo by Nick Rhyne
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With a more robust understanding of the place and the characters behind Dancing at Lughnasa, the group moved on to practicums with staggeringly influential coaches. Theatre students snagged a series of workshops that included one with a prominent Irish actor and an audition workshop with Maisie Lee, a former resident assistant director of the Abbey Theatre, Ireland’s national theatre. Students also spent a full day with Donnacadh O’Briain, a former assistant director with the Royal Shakespeare Company. ‘We were not only trained in Shakespearean performance, but we also got to do a scene in front of someone from the Royal Shakespeare Company,’ Sandell says with wonder. Visual arts students had their own opportunities to study and forge relationships. A workshop with celebrated Irish artist David King, facilitated by Carlow artist Catherine Ryan, took place at VISUAL, which is recognised as one of the country’s top galleries. They also climbed legendary Croagh Patrick, the site of Saint Patrick’s forty-day fast in AD 441, with art supplies in tow to capture the breathtaking scenery atop the mountain. They got a new outlook—literally—as well as something else that’s hard to come by at school: their instructor’s undivided attention. Travelling
with the art students was John Markowitz, programme director for the Department of Art at UWF, who concedes that a typical semester’s hectic schedule isn’t conducive to full engagement from either the teacher or the students. ‘Here, they just focused on painting, drawing, photographing, and experiencing a culture first-hand,’ he says. ‘It was just four students and me traversing a country, which allowed for interactions that are impossible in a classroom with fifteen to twenty other students. That’s why you can’t substitute a classroom setting for this kind of experience.’ Once again, the centrepiece of the trip was the Carlow Arts Festival. This time UWF students staged All in the Timing, a series of comedic plays by David Ives. This very American work was an intentional choice, Reddy says. He was advised that comedies were the best way to introduce the university and its students’ abilities to the festival’s audiences. They’ve stuck to the advice for two years. ‘Next year, we’ll probably go with something more classic,’ Reddy predicts. On top of performances in the George Bernard Shaw Theatre, the UWF delegation was part of the festival’s floating barge troupe that created mini pop-up festivals in different towns every night. The group again ended its trip in Dublin. And while there was no meeting with the prime minister, they did meet with US Ambassador to Ireland Kevin F. O’Malley. After learning about the ambitious programme, O’Malley said, ‘I applaud the success of the University of West Florida’s Irish Experience programme and welcome the contribution that this initiative makes to the US-Ireland relationship.’ The Irish Experience Program doesn’t end when the plane takes off from Dublin Airport. Students still have to perform the Irish play they put so much time into researching. And both years, a little bit of Ireland came back home with them in the form of Irish actor and director Paddy Behan, who directed The Beauty Queen of Leenane and Dancing at Lughnasa in Pensacola, Florida. Reddy says Behan has been instrumental in the programme’s success. This cultural give-and-take is what the Irish Experience Program is all about. Shane Stephens, consul general of Ireland in Atlanta,
Photos by Nick Rhyne
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Photo by Aubrie Offerdahl
‘THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA AND IRELAND ENJOY A STRONG BOND OF FRIENDSHIP THAT CROSSES EDUCATIONAL, CULTURAL, AND ECONOMIC TIES.’
took note of its impact when he attended the UWF performance of Dancing at Lughnasa. ‘It’s a programme of great quality and authenticity,’ he says. ‘By presenting American culture in Ireland and Irish culture in the US, University of West Florida participants have been wonderful ambassadors for both sides.’ Now gearing up for its third run, the programme is expanding yet again to include music majors. And the best may be yet to come; Reddy says his strongest contacts are actually in the musical field, thanks to his own vocal background. Music students will work with coaches from the illustrious Royal Irish Academy of Music in Dublin, among other remarkable mentors. The result, undoubtedly, will be as life altering for music students as it has been for visual arts and theatre students. Houghton says the biggest change he sees in participants is their confidence level—a sense of focus and a passion that’s exhilarating to witness. Markowitz has observed the same paradigm shift in his art students. Sandell, who graduates soon with a BA in acting, insists the experience was invaluable to her chosen career and also gave her the writing bug. ‘Theatre has this way of touching our hearts and challenging us with things we might not receive in other ways,’ she says. ‘There’s a lot of room for telling stories of hope, survival, and inspiration.’
Reddy isn’t surprised that Ireland cast its creative spell on the students. The fact that Ireland is synonymous with theatre, poetry, and song is a pretty good indicator of its power to stir the imagination. Kelly, the administrator who studied in Ireland, has also spent time in the Middle East and China as part of educational partnerships. ‘Not every place is Ireland,’ he says simply. ‘It’s very unique in terms of how the arts are the threads that make up the fabric of society.’ There’s an entire team responsible for making the Irish Experience Program a reality, starting with a university that fully supports outsidethe-box (or classroom) opportunities. But without Reddy, the programme would not be the marvel it’s become—if it ever got off the ground at all. Houghton credits Reddy’s enthusiasm and remarkable associations with creating a programme of unrivalled quality. ‘Howard has been amazing with his time and contacts,’ he praises. ‘The opportunities our students have over there are tremendous, and it’s because of Howard.’ Reddy is delighted to be part of high-impact, experiential learning that celebrates collaboration in its purest form. And as for the fact that the programme is strengthening cross-cultural links with his hometown? ‘It’s satisfying,’ he smiles.
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Ann-Marie Aspell &
Tom O’Neill 28 December 2014 Saint Joseph’s Church, Letterfrack Reception at the Galway Bay Hotel, Galway Photography by John McMahon
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‘Having all of our family and friends there was very important to both Tom and me. The scenery and the clear, blue winter sky made for some stunning pictures.’
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Ann-Marie and John’s Christmas wedding was celebrated in the beautiful town of Letterfrack, County Galway, with blue skies and lots of friends and family. ‘Tom and I chose to get married in Connemara because I am from Letterfrack,’ Ann-Marie says. ‘We were incredibly lucky with the weather; it was a beautiful, crisp sunny day. Connemara always looks great in that type of weather!’ The couple said their vows and emerged from Saint Joseph’s Church to beautiful blue skies over the surrounding rolling countryside. After the ceremony, the bridal party drove to nearby Kylemore Abbey for a photo op. ‘Having all of our family and friends there was very important to both Tom and me. The scenery and the clear, blue winter sky made for some stunning pictures. I also love Christmas, so to have our wedding during the holiday season was the best gift.’
S PEC IAL THAN K S PHOTOGRAPHY: John McMahon – www.JohnMcMahonPhotography.com, (087) 2496571 VIDEOGRAPHY: Pay Coyne LODGING: Galway Bay Hotel – www.GalwayBayHotel.net FLOWERS: Maddens Florists, Galway MUSIC: Brenda Grealis, ceremony; the Elastic Band, reception CAKE: Goyas Bakery, Galway
Following the nuptial ceremony, a stunning holiday-themed celebration was held at the Galway Bay Hotel. ‘The staff at the Galway Bay Hotel were excellent and couldn’t do enough for us,’ Ann-Marie says. ‘They went above and beyond to make our wedding magical!’
CAR: Costello Bus Hire HAIR: Lynda McNally – www.HairByLynda.ie MAKEUP: Colleen Allman
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Ethel Reidy and Garrett Coughlan 23 August 2014 Christ the King Church, Tullycross Reception at Rosleague Manor, Letterfrack P hotograPhy
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D arek N ovak
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arrett and Ethel have always had a special place in their hearts for Connemara, so deciding to have their wedding at the picturesque Rosleague Manor was the perfect way to celebrate their love for one another with friends and family. ‘We have always loved the spectacular scenery of Connemara and knew it would be the perfect location for our family and friends to share our special day,’ says Garrett fondly. ‘We found a great church in Tullycross with a Harry Clarke stained-glass window that we loved, and as soon as we drove up to Rosleague Manor, we knew it was exactly the type of venue we were looking for.’ Special DIY touches—homemade centrepieces, chalkboard menus, and seating charts— made the day even more unique for this beautiful
young couple. ‘Family, friends, and the amazing staff at Rosleague helped to bring it all together, leaving Ethel and me to get ourselves to the church on time!’ Garrett says the church ceremony was made even better when Ethel’s mum and her sister, who was also a bridesmaid, played some beautiful music to welcome their guests. ‘Father Charlie O’Donnell of Westport Parish took us all by surprise when he suggested that the two of us serve Communion to our wedding guests!’ he recalls. ‘When we got outside, the weather was fabulous and we were able to have our reception on the beautiful front lawn at Rosleague Manor, where Ethel’s dad then surprised us when he joined the band, the Clew Bay Critters, and sang her favourite Bob Dylan song. Having our friends and family together in the one place was the highlight. We were absolutely delighted with our day and cannot praise Rosleague Manor highly enough.’ The pair returned to Rosleague last August for their first wedding anniversary, and they hope to keep up the tradition by bringing their son, Reuben, along with them for another trip this summer.
SPecial thaNkS Photography: Darek Novak – www.PhotoSligo.com Lodging: Rosleague Manor – www.Rosleague.com Flowers: Leitrim Flowers, Cousin Blathnaid, and the couple’s own garden Cake of cheese: Carrowholly Cheese, Westport Cake: Made by family friend Brona Fullen Music: The Clew Bay Critters, welcome reception; Ain’t Misbehavin, post-dinner Hair: Laura Gibbons of Laura’s Hair, Westport Makeup: Sandra of MAC Galway ConnemaraLife.ie
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Laura Larkin & Brian McCaffrey 3 May 2014 Christ the King Church, Tullycross Reception at Renvyle House Hotel, Renvyle Photography by Michelle Prunty
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Laura and Brian are both natives of western Ireland—Laura is from Galway and Brian from Sligo—so their Connemara wedding displayed all the beauty of their roots with all the hope for a grand future together. ‘We met in our final year of college in NUI Galway in 2005,’ recalls Laura. ‘After college, I moved to Dublin to work with KPMG and Brian moved around Ireland working as a civil engineer, so we spent seven years driving up and down the country to see each other at weekends.’ Brian finally moved to Dublin in the summer of 2012, and the pair became engaged while on holiday in Dubai that October.
‘Brian and I drove down from Dublin to suss out Renvyle House as a venue, and he fell in love straight away. We didn’t look anywhere else!’ Laura always wanted to get married near home, but she also loved the idea of having a wedding in a place where the special day could be extended into a longer celebration. In that case, Brian’s and her guests from all over the world could enjoy the region. ‘My Dad was based in Clifden for a few years for work when I was young, so we spent a lot of time exploring Connemara, and it has a special place in my heart,’ Laura says. ‘I knew I would love to get married in Renvyle House. I love the location, the surroundings, the atmosphere, the service, the food—everything! So in November 2012, Brian and I drove down from Dublin to suss out Renvyle House as a venue, and he fell in love straight away. We didn’t look anywhere else!’ Along with the beautiful venue, Brian says what made the wedding day extra special was having all his and Laura’s friends and family there. ‘Our guests made huge efforts to travel to Renvyle from as far away as San Francisco, Chicago, Australia, Hong Kong, the UK, and all around Ireland,’ he says. ‘We knew the setting was so unique that our guests would feel that the long trip was worth it once they arrived.’ Thanks to the superb service and assistance of the Renvyle House staff, Brian says he and Laura felt relaxed and were able to enjoy their big day to the fullest, along with all their family and friends. ‘Our guests still comment on how much they enjoyed the weekend and always mention the good food and pints!’ Laura and Brian now reside in the Dublin suburb of Dundrum but say they love nothing more than traveling west as often as possible, and they are hoping to celebrate their two-year anniversary at Renvyle House soon.
Special Thanks Photography: Michelle Prunty – www.MichellePrunty.com Lodging: Renvyle House Hotel – www.Renvyle.com Cake: Lemon drizzle and chocolate with Baileys buttercream tiers, made by Gift Cakes, Dublin – www.GiftCakes.ie Music: Jenny O’Brien, ceremony; the Elastic Band, reception Hair: Emer Coen Makeup: Roisin Derrane Flowers: Branch Flowers, Galway. Laura’s parents made the arch outside the church, while her aunt made the beautiful floral arrangements placed inside the church. ConnemaraLife.ie
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N E A S A C O O K E and J O H N F R E N C H 25 MAY 2 01 4 Inishbofin House Hotel, Inishbofin Photography by Darek Novak
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For Neasa and John, keeping their wedding simple and relaxed was really important, and the help of friends made their special day on the island of Inishbofin intimate and unforgettable. ‘John and I had mutual friends, and we all hung out a lot during the summer of 2004,’ Neasa says, recalling the beginning of their love story. ‘There was always a bit of a spark between myself and John. One night, my best friend took us both aside, separately, and told us to cop on and just get together, as it was painful for everyone else to watch. We did and have been together ever since!’ The pair got engaged in Taormina, Sicily. ‘We went for a nightcap on the balcony of the Grand Hotel Miramare, and we were the only ones there except for a little old waiter in a tux. He delivered two gin and tonics, and then a token ring appeared.’ Neasa, hailing from Galway, spent her childhood holidays in Leenane and Renvyle, so Connemara was a favourite getaway even before she met John. Once they became a couple, they explored the region together, island-hopping around the west of Ireland in the summer. ‘When we found Inishbofin, we thought it was the perfect location,’ Neasa says. Inishbofin’s strong traditional music scene dictated that the sounds of their celebration should showcase that heritage. After the reception meal, local fiddle player Francis O’Halloran played up at the back bar in the dining room, accompanied by two other local musicians. ‘It really felt like a session in a pub,’ says Neasa. ‘John and his friends DJ’d, which made the whole thing extra special! For this part of the night we moved into the front bar of the hotel, which is perfect for a small party and has a great view of the harbour.’ On the secrets of having a perfect wedding, Neasa has this advice: ‘Do what makes ye ConnemaraLife.ie
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‘What made the day really special for us was everyone’s enthusiasm and love.’
• SPEC IAL THAN KS
happy and works for ye as a couple. What made the day really special for us was everyone’s enthusiasm and love. Nearly everyone we invited came, even from Canada, New York, Berlin, and London. We had fun surrounded by really close friends and family. I just remember lots and lots of laughing and hours of dancing. Without the help of our friends, the whole thing wouldn’t have come together, especially since we were on an island.’ The whole wedding really was a group effort, as Neasa’s bridesmaids made the table plans and the best man made the invites. The wedding party also put together a DIY ‘SWAT team’ that spent the day before and the morning of the wedding fluffing pom-poms—‘Surprisingly, the men had a particular talent for this,’ says Neasa—collecting stones for the aisle and sand for the jam jars, and adding last-minute details that brought everything together.
Photography: Darek Novak www.PhotoSligo.com Wedding Gown: Lover the Label, Australia Heels: Kurt Geiger, UK Boots: Defined from Buffalo Dublin Bridesmaids’ Dresses: COS Groom’s Suit: Linen three-piece, made to measure by Magee, Dublin Lodging: Inishbofin House Hotel www.InishbofinHouse.com Flowers: Go Dutch, Salthill, Galway Hair: Helen Raftery, family friend
For their honeymoon, Neasa and John enjoyed some more island-hopping in the western Cyclades of Greece. ‘We went to Milos, Sifnos, and Serifos and had a total ball!’
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Keem Bay at Achill Island along the Wild Atlantic Way is one of the most visited beaches in County Mayo and is known to be home of basking sharks.
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The
ULTIMATE Day Trip
A J A U N T I N W E S T P O R T, I R E L A N D
B y LESLEY EMERSON P h o to g ra phy by MATT LOUGHREY
ere’s a piece of friendly advice: don’t miss Westport while you’re in the West! Judged by Irish Times readers a couple of years back as ‘the best place to live’ in Ireland, it must be pretty close to ‘the best place to visit’ as well. Indeed, the route from Connemara is one of the most scenic in the country, passing via the town of Leenane and the shores of Killary Fjord through brooding Doo Lough Valley to Louisburgh and then along the glorious coastline past Croagh Patrick to Westport itself. Travelling from Connemara to Westport is to move from Joyce Country to the land of the pirate queen Grace O’Malley (or Granuaile), who ruled the waters of Clew Bay back in the 1500s. Several of her castles remain dotted along the coast and on Clare Island, which guards the entrance to the great bay. Her descendants, the Browne family, still live in their Westport House estate on the site of one such castle. The stately
home and the Pirate Adventure Park are magnetic attractions, especially for visiting families. Few towns have the charisma and charm of Westport, and fewer still are as well equipped to host visitors and tourists at any time of the year. ‘Small but perfectly formed’ is an apt description of this designated Heritage Town, which barely has a mantelpiece broad enough to carry its many awards: Tidy Towns, Entente Florale, Best Kept Town, and more. Westport is beautifully laid out as befits one of the few planned towns in Ireland. One particularly picturesque area, the Mall, features elegant tree-lined boulevards and Georgian houses flanking the Carrowbeg River. The key directional markers are a delightful town clock standing alongside an old-style telephone kiosk and the Octagon, or town square, with an appropriate statue of Saint Patrick standing guard. Streets are generally named with charming logic
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The city centre of Westport is a charming and bustling hub of shops, pubs, and culture. Photo by Kellie Diane Stewart / Shutterstock Opposite Page Top: A common sight in Connemara, mountain sheep often dot the grasslands surrounding the foothills of Croagh Patrick. Bottom: The calm Carrowbeg River flows almost directly through Westport’s city centre and makes for a scenic stroll along the Mall to the north and south. Photo by Richard Semik / Shutterstock
The Reek is a stiff but rewarding climb offering remarkable views over Clew Bay from Achill to Inishbofin. (Shop Street, Bridge Street) or after one of the Browne family members (James Street, John’s Row). Handy town maps are available from the Tourist Office, and regular guided walks will introduce you to some of the history of this enchanting town. Strict planning has banned neon signage and maintained a traditional look and feel throughout the town. A quirky combination of boutiques, bike hire firms, galleries, pubs, craft shops, and cafes jostle for attention, many with the owners’ names proudly displayed above the door. The slightest hint of sunshine brings tables and chairs outside for continental-style dining at its best, while permanent street furniture means there’s always somewhere for the weary visitor to take a rest. Spacious car parks have a modest charge and are tucked 128
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away discreetly. On-street parking is free for an hour at a time—though there’s plenty to keep you occupied for much longer. Behind Westport Leisure Park, an outdoor playground for children is free of charge and open all the time. In the case of inclement weather, there are several indoor options, beginning with no fewer than five swimming pools: one in Leisure Park and four in nearby hotels. The cinema is reopening in summer 2016, along with an indoor play village with a Wild West theme on Altamont Street (also a Browne family reference). Bicycle parking, bike lockers, and a wide choice of bike hire outlets hint at Westport’s location on the Great Western Greenway, which runs forty-two kilometres to Achill Island. Rental companies will bus you to Achill so you can cycle back at your leisure. If that’s too ambitious, the Old Railway Line Walk, a beautiful two-and-a-half-kilometre walking and cycling trail, goes from the town down to Westport Quay. There is also a cycle lane all the way out to the mountain of Croagh Patrick in Murrisk, eight kilometres from the town. The Reek, as Croagh Patrick is locally known, has been a site of pilgrimage since pre-Christian times and still attracts around twenty-five thousand climbers on Reek Sunday, the last Sunday in July. It’s a stiff but rewarding climb, offering remarkable views over Clew Bay from Achill to Inishbofin. If you still have the energy, a swim at Bertra Beach just down the road is a great way to refresh yourself. Alternatively, there are two pubs near the Reek that offer a different style of refreshment. Look out for the National Famine Monument opposite Croagh Patrick car park. It’s a dramatic, thought-provoking sculpture of a famine ship with stylised skeletons forming the rigging. Appropriately, it stares out over Clew Bay where ships, heavily laden with miserable human cargo, sailed in the 1840s to escape the potato famine.
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Westport is a town of charisma and contrasts. It’s a delight to visit and a highly recommended day trip.
A view of Clew Bay from Croagh Patrick overlooks Dorinish Island (which once belonged to John Lennon), the village of Murrisk, and Bertra Beach.
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Don’t miss out on Westport Quay during your visit. Recently upgraded, it has its own distinct character, and restored grain warehouses now house some excellent shops, restaurants, and pubs. Particularly charming is the Towers Bar and Restaurant with its stunning views. The main entrance to Westport House and the beautiful estate leads onto the Quay area. Walking out to the point is a lovely short stroll along the quayside past the fishing and pleasure boats. Keep an eye out for the Clew Bay Heritage Centre on the way; this small museum houses some wonderful local antiquities. If you’d rather get closer to the bay itself, there are a few options for getting afloat. Take a sightseeing tour, go sea angling (for a day or a few hours), or get up-close and personal with the marine life on a kayak tour. Whatever you choose, make sure you have the camera close at hand.
Shopaholics will find that Westport punches well above its weight and rewards browsing on the main shopping streets, at the Quay, or in hidden nooks and crannies. Many shops take pride in stocking local and Irish products rather than following the mainstream. Westport is a great place to buy souvenirs, sports or outdoor clothing, and both the wedding outfit and the wedding present! Westport is well known as a foodie destination and has an excellent food festival in late June. The quality of restaurants and cafes is very high, and award plaques are commonplace outside the doors. Keep an eye out for artisan butchers and bakers too, particularly if you have a gourmet picnic in mind. Be sure to try one of the local craft beers, such as those from Mescan Brewery, intriguingly named after none other than Saint Patrick’s personal brewer. The food festival isn’t the only event worth attending in Westport; there seems to be something pretty much every week of the year, including cycling and outdoor events, the intriguing Bike Buffet—where participants cycle between each course of their meal—and the Westport Arts Festival and Rolling Sun Book Festival, both in autumn. There’s music on offer every night in one or more pubs, particularly Matt Molloy’s (owned by the world-famous Chieftains musician) and the Town Hall Theatre, which has an excellent calendar of shows and events. Check with the Tourist Office for details on all local events; it is a treasure trove of information and advice. Westport is a town of charisma and contrasts. It’s a delight to visit and a highly recommended day trip from anywhere in Connemara. Be warned though: once you’ve visited, you could find yourself hooked on its beautiful scenery, year-round calendar of events, and desirable fare!
B
allynahinch Castle is set on a 450-acre estate in the heart of Connemara with 48 bedrooms and suites. Enjoy dinner in the elegant Owenmore Restaurant serving the best of local produce produced by Ultan Cooke and his team. On-site activities include fly-fishing, hiking, walking trails, cycling and locally a boat trip to a deserted island. The ideal base for visiting Connemara, The Islands and the Wild Atlantic Way. Voted #1 Hotel in Ireland in the CondĂŠ Nast Readers Choice Awards October 2014.
Tel: + 353 95 31006
Email: info@ballynahinch-castle.com
WWW.BALLYNAHINCHCASTLE.COM
Fashion and lifestyle in Connemara
M I L LAR S
CONNEMARA S I N CE 1900
Main Street, Clifden Call us +353 (0)95 21038 Email: millarsconnemara@gmail.com Visit www.millarsconnemara.com