Erne your keep in Belturbet
YOU used to be able to catch a train in Belturbet, Co Cavan, for all the good it would do you. The train went either west to Ballyhaise or east to Dromod and Arigna, so unless you were a miner at Arigna, all that remained was to find something to do when you disembarked.
At any rate, the lined closed to passengers in 1885, even though Belturbet nowadays attracts a great many visitors who might be glad to catch a train there, even if only from Ballyhaise. The railway station is now a museum catering to them.
When tourists aren’t pondering the history of the railway age in Cavan, they’re usually fishing or boating on the Erne, rambling around the verdant countryside, or hanging out at the Festival of the Erne.
About a kilometre upriver from Belturbet (or three kilometres by road) are the Cornadarragh Forest Lodges, a small settlement of log cabins in a wooded setting beside the River Erne.
Number 23 is close to the back of the development, near the riverbank. It’s the former showhouse and is still as neat as a pin inside and out.
The ground floor has a deck front and back, and there’s a first-floor balcony too so there’s no escaping the views.The balcony is off one of the two bedrooms upstairs, which also has an en-suite. Downstairs the front deck leads into a sitting room and the kitchen is at the back. This holiday home is very much a candidate for letting when you’re not using it yourself.
In the high season you can expect to be able to rent it for around €300 per weekend, especially to those who like a bit of fishing. The pike fishing in Cavan is legendary and tourists come from Europe in search of 10lb plus fish.
It’s about 20 minutes’ drive from Cavan town and an hour-and-a-half from Dublin.
This one is for sale for €99,000 with Sherry FitzGerald Declan Woods (049)