GO IRELAND:With a 12th-century abbey and the aristocratic King House at its heart, and a forest park on its doorstep, the town of Boyle will keep you busy, writes MELOSINA LENOX-CONYNGHAM
WHEN I WAS 40 I was sad that so many people knew my age. At 60 I was dyeing my hair a sort of orange and squeezing into tiny shorts. At 65 I bought a rocking chair and checked my medical insurance. But at 66 I received my free-travel pass. So now I am as free as a bird. Or rather a bus. So on a wet morning, instead of peering through rain-lashed windows, I jump on some form of public transport to somewhere else.
Looking at the timetable, I found that Boyle, in Co Roscommon, had a railway station. So I caught a train that left from Connolly, in Dublin, and we went through flat green countryside scattered with sploshes of golden gorse interlaced with bogs and lakes.
For a few days’ break Boyle is ideal, for there is so much to do and see in close proximity. A short walk from the station brings you to the handsome early-18th-century King House. Its rooms feature scenes from different centuries. The sound effects are more evocative than the displays, though I did think I was hearing a badly behaved school outing, and was muttering about modern manners, when I realised the voices were from the jolly medieval banquet.
The King family lived here for about 50 years before moving to Rockingham, their new stately home on the shores of Lough Key, so King House became a barracks for the Connaught Rangers, the Irish regiment of the British army known as the Devil’s Own. Several rooms are devoted to memorabilia, with descriptions of the actions its soldiers had seen in India, the Peninsular War, the Crimea and the Boer war. You can listen to the bugle calls and hear the drums and the calls of the recruiting sergeant.
Another room, not on the tour, holds the roll of honour for those men killed in the first World War. My great uncle was a colonel in the regiment; carrying only his walking stick, he led his men over the top at the Battle of Guillemont, part of the Battle of the Somme, in 1916. He was killed immediately, but the soldiers, encouraged by his gallantry, attacked and won the position they had been targeting.
Downstairs are two rooms where you can sink into comfortable sofas to rest your feet and read the magazines that are on the table.
Around Christmas each year dinner parties are held in the house, during which a “murder” is staged. Would-be Hercule Poirots, Maigrets and Precious Ramotswes can show off their detective skills.
From King House it is only a few metres to the ruins of Boyle Abbey, which was founded as a Cistercian monastery in the 12th century. It went through many vicissitudes, being plundered, raided and burnt. After the building was dissolved as a monastery, it too became a barracks – but the ruined church is still there, with a graceful arcade.
On the capital of one column is a carving of three kilted men standing among branches – perhaps they are enjoying the arboreal walk that is part of the Lough Key Experience at the nearby lake.
Set in the wall of the abbey is a strange Sheela-na-gig with a moon face. It is barely discernible, but it haunts my memory as some symbol of malevolence.
I stayed at Lough Key House, a bed and breakfast whose owner, Frances McDonagh, offers to collect any guest from the station and drive them the five kilometres from Boyle to the guest house, on the Carrick-on-Shannon road. I was made very welcome and comfortable; a fire was burning in the bedroom grate when I went to bed, so had I not immediately fallen asleep I could have watched my dreams in the flames.
Other guests included two boys from Michigan who were fascinated by the hens. Every time an egg was laid they bore it triumphantly into the dining room. The hens became a bit flustered under this heavy surveillance, and looked as if they might go on strike, but I can vouch that my herb omelette was made with very, very fresh eggs.
McDonagh has bicycles for visitors to use; I borrowed one to head for the Rockingham estate – now known as Lough Key Forest Park – just down the road. As I had not been on a bike for some time, I chose the smallest I could, so I would not have far to fall. This was a mistake, as my knee came almost in contact with my chin as I wobbled through the bluebells, and if there was the slightest incline I had to dismount – a walker reached my destination long before I did.
Bluebells made an azure carpet under the pale-leafed beech woods with “the tufted Crow-toe, and pale Gessamine, the white Pink, and the Pansie freakt with jeat, the glowing Violet”. In his poem Lycidas, Milton commemorates Edward King, a fellow student and son of the Rockingham family, who drowned in the Irish Sea when returning to Boyle.
I sat on the edge of the lake, looking at the islands, one of which is home to a ruined castle built as a folly. Swans glided through the water, the scent of bluebells drifted through the air and a thrush sang in a nearby bush. This is only part of the Lough Key Experience, which includes walking up a tunnel that servants used to enter the house, being whisked up a cement viewing tower and then going down an even longer tunnel where a donkey and cart had brought the turf to heat the house.
From here I went on to stroll among the treetops. I had hoped I would emulate the Boyle-born film star Maureen O’Sullivan, saying “You Tarzan, me Jane,” but the park’s tree-canopy walk is very disability friendly, and the elderly gentleman I passed did not look as if he would be good at swinging though the branches with me over one shoulder.
Also part of the Lough Key Experience is the Boda Borg, which, to quote from the brochure, “is an innovative and challenging Swedish concept for adults and children alike containing numerous rooms with fun-filled activities and imaginative puzzles but no instructions! Solving the problems can only be done using teamwork, intelligence and ingenuity”.
Perhaps members of the Government should spend time here, climbing up netting or holding hands while touching two walls. The schoolchildren there at the same time as me were certainly enjoying themselves, and they grasped the tasks that had to be performed far more quickly than I did.
About 20km to the north are the Arigna Mountains, where coal was mined until 1990. You can now walk into the horizontal main shafts, at the Arigna Mining Experience. The coal was taken from seams no more than 50cm thick, so the “face man” had to dig out the coal lying on his back or side, often in a puddle of water.
Standing in the tunnel, where we could hear the drip of water, we listened to our guide, Seamus Lehany, who worked in the mines from the age of 14 until they closed. He described work that sounded impossibly hard, dangerous and uncomfortable, walking perhaps five kilometres to the coal face during eight-hour shifts with never a “styme” of daylight. A simulated blast of dynamite boomed and echoed through the passages, making you realise what an eerie place it must have been. Never before had I grasped what it was like to be a miner. How glad I am that I am not one.
There are not many restaurants in Boyle. At the Moving Stairs you can eat downstairs, in the pub, or above, in a room around tree trunks. The pub used to belong to the Grehan family, which included the well-known Grehan Sisters folk singers – Marie, Francie and Helen. The night I was there they were in the pub, having come back for a funeral. Everybody knew them and their music.
The next time I go to Boyle I will hire a boat so that I can visit the islands in the lough or try my hand at fishing – though perhaps I will just chill out on the lake shore.
The train pulled into the station and, waving a farewell to Boyle with my free-travel pass, I climbed aboard to chuff my way home.
Melosina Lenox-Conyngham was a guest of Fáilte Ireland; www.visitroscommon.com
“ I had hoped I would emulate the Boyle-born film star Maureen O’Sullivan, saying ‘You Tarzan, me Jane,’ but the elderly gentleman I passed on Lough Key Forest Park’s tree-canopy walk did not look as if he would be good at swinging though the branches with me over one shoulder
Where to stay, where to eat and where to go if you’re off to Boyle
Where to stay
Lough Key House. Carrick Road, 071-9662161, 087-6787257, www.loughkey house.com. A comfortable and relaxed guest house, offering bed and breakfast accommodation, run by Frances McDonagh. When you arrive you'll likely be offered tea and apple pie, and the next morning you'll be served a delicious breakfast, with a choice of fruit and home-made breads. The stone-faced Georgian building is beside Lough Key Forest Park.
Rosdarrig.Carrick Road, 071-9662040, www.rosdarrig. com. A modern red-brick house on the edge of Boyle.
Abbey House.Boyle Abbey grounds, 071-9662385 www.abbeyhouse.net. A very pretty Victorian house next to the Cistercian abbey and five minutes' walk from the town centre.
Where to eat
The Moving Stairs.The Crescent, 071-9663586. A pleasant ambiance and a wide-ranging menu. You can eat upstairs, in the restaurant, or downstairs, in the bar. Many of the best local traditional music gigs are held here.
King House Restaurant. King House, 071-9664805. In the grounds of King House, and open from 10am until 5pm daily between April and September (and between 8am and 3pm from Monday to Saturday the rest of the year), serving lunches, tea and coffee, sandwiches, and hot and cold snacks.
Bar Bazaar(Stone House Cafe). Bridge Street, 071-9664861. Beside the River Boyle, serving coffee, soup and sandwiches between 10am and 6pm from Monday to Saturday.
Where to go
King House.Main Street, 071-9663242, www.kinghouse.ie. A beautiful Georgian house that displays interesting scenes from its history as a private house and as a barracks. It also features memories of Rockingham and the 1957 fire that destroyed this great country house.
Boyle Abbey.071-9662604, www.heritageireland.ie/en/ West/BoyleAbbey. The graceful ruin of a 12th-century Cistercian abbey.
Arigna Mining Experience.Arigna, 071-9646466, www.arignaminingexperience.ie. An underground tour of Ireland's last working coal mine. This is a fascinating glimpse of a way of life now gone.
Lough Key Forest and Activity Park.071-9673122, www.loughkey.ie. Even if it is pouring with rain, the park features the Boda Borg for teenagers and grown-ups. There is also a playground that should be thrilling for any infant climber or slide enthusiast. The park itself is very picturesque, with many walking and cycling trails.
Lough Key Boat Tours.Lough Key Forest Park, 071-9667037, 086-8167037, www.loughkeyboats.com. The company offers rowing boats for hourly or daily hire. (Life jackets supplied.) Boats with outboard engines are also available.
Where to shop
Úna Bhán Tourism Co-operative Society.Grounds of King House, 071-9663033, www.unabhan.net. Combines being the local tourist office with a craft shop that sells local handmade traditional crafts and knitwear. It also hosts a farmers' market each Saturday from 10am until 2pm.
Boles of Boyle.Bridge Street, 071-9662011. Local department store that stocks some upmarket designer labels.