Browse Sections

• Personal finance
• Health and beauty
• Dating
• Holidays 
  • Holiday reviews
• Hotels
• Food and drink

Donegal, Ireland

Michael O'Flaherty
9/ 8/2008

EARLY one misty Irish morning a long time ago, I passed by a sign pointing the way to a house called Lissadell.

It was the name that attracted me - poetic and evocative. I also remembered it as a place where the poet WB Yeats had written of two beautiful girls in silk kimonos.

Yeats had spent some time at that lovely old house with two sisters - Constance and Eva Gore-Booth - who were to help shape Irish history, the former becoming a freedom fighter for Irish independence, the latter a poet and supporter of women's rights and social justice.

I turned off the main road to see the great grey granite house which stands in rolling countryside under the shadow of another subject of Yeats's writing, the mountain Ben Bulben, towering majestically over Sligo Bay.

But tiles were missing from the roof. Plants grew from cracks in the walls. The gardens, which stretched down to the sea in an achingly beautiful vista, were weed-ridden and overgrown.

Glass from the shattered greenhouse, where once rare plants grew, lay sharp on the ground. Paint peeled from the windows and door. Fast forward to spring of this year and during a magical holiday to Donegal, a part of Ireland mercifully not overrun by tourists, I took the chance to travel south to County Sligo to visit Lissadell again.

Monument

In 2003, the house was rescued by Constance Cassidy, a Dublin barrister with a sense of history.

With her husband, Eddie Walsh, she has lovingly restored the property, originally built in 1834, and made it both into a home for her seven children, and a wonderful monument the public can visit.

New life has been breathed into the old house, and one of the highlights of the mansion is the magnificent gallery, which is lined with ionic columns and classical art.

Fantastic gasoliers are suspended in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows and cast a serene light into the house.

So, after my detour, it was with a lighter heart that I left the place this time and headed back for the delights of Donegal, with its dramatic mountains, lakes, meadows and wondrous coastline.

You can drive miles through the breathtakingly-beautiful mountain scenery here and not see another car. Donegal - from the Irish Dun Na Ngall, meaning fort of the foreigners - is the Republic of Ireland's most northerly county and possesses 120 miles of beautiful coastline with endless stretches of sand and deserted beaches.

Being so close to the border, Donegal receives many visitors from Northern Ireland, as well as Britons seeking the abiding peace that is part of the varying, ever-changing scapes of land, sea and sky.

And all around you is a sense of history. Visit Donegal Castle, for example, originally built in the 15th century by the O'Donnell clan chieftain, Hugh, on the River Eske in Donegal Town.

Unspoilt

It had an extraordinary demise, when Hugh O'Donnell burnt it to the ground rather than see it fall into the hands of the old enemy, England. It was rebuilt in Jacobean style a century later.

Donegal is still a secret place, unspoilt by the blot of commercialism. It is often by-passed by visitors delving further west into Sligo and Connemara - all the more reason for dallying.

The county has also some of the most spectacular golf courses in the world, where you never have to queue for a tee-off.

It is a paradise for anglers and walkers. It has music, with the emphasis on fiddle-playing, and it has song. In some parts you can still hear the soft lilt of the Irish language. And it has fine food.

We stayed in a quiet corner of Donegal, at Harvey's Point Country Hotel, which stands on the shore of Lough Eske, with the Bluestack mountains providing a stunning backdrop. Just three miles from Donegal Town, it is a luxurious combination of Irish hospitality and Swiss efficiency.

Harvey's Point began with a holidaying Swiss, Jody Gysling. He was walking the hills of Donegal when he stumbled across a small cottage. The dwelling, and its setting, reminded him of Switzerland and he was able to buy it from the local Harvey brothers.

From such a small beginning, the cottage grew into a hotel, which opened in 1989 with 20 bedrooms and two restaurants. Jody's brother Marc and his wife Deirdre, born in Donegal, joined the family business.

A further 42 deluxe rooms arrived in 2005 and hotel chef Paul Montgomery is a proud winner of the AA Two Rosette Award. This is a wonderful place to stay and enjoy the richness of this secret county.

Michael O'Flaherty was a guest of Harvey's Point Country Hotel, near Donegal Town, which currently offers a special rate of E169 (£136) per person per night for dinner, B&B (midweek) and E189 (£152) at weekends. Normal B&B rates for double exec suite are E320 (£256) and standard room E250 (£200). Harvey's Point enquiries: 00353 74 9722208 or visit harveyspoint.com.

>  Lissadell is open to visitors during spring, summer and autumn and year round for tour groups by appointment.
>  Contact Angela Leonard on 00 353 7191 63150 from the UK.
>  Budget airlines flying into nearby Derry include Ryanair ex-Stansted and East Midlands, flybe ex-Birmingham and Glasgow and various other regional deps incl Liverpool and Bristol.
>  There is useful flight information on ryanair.com, britishairways.com and aerarann.ie.
>  Destination information: Tourism Ireland on 020 7518 0800 and discoverireland.com