Walking in the footsteps of a General among the hedgerows of Connemara
AMONG the more famous visitors to Cashel in Connemara was General Charles de Gaulle. After resigning as president of France in 1969, he spent a couple of weeks with his wife at the Cashel House Hotel, a Victorian-era former stately home on 50 acres overlooking Cashel Bay.
You can see the attraction, as the scenery is lovely in this part of County Galway, with mountains, dozens of peaceful inlets dotted with islands, and of course the ubiquitous fuchsia and furze ablaze in the hedgerows.
Some one-and-a-half kilometres south of De Gaulle’s old haunt, in the townland of Lehanagh, is a quaint cottage standing in a stone-walled garden with its own abundant fuchsia along the boundary.
There are views from here of Bertraghboy Bay to the south and Cashel Hill to the north, and it’s about an hour’s drive from Galway city.
The place has been renovated and restored but still has a traditional cottage feel, with small windows, a half-door, a loft, and terracotta-tile floors.
Despite its dainty proportions it manages to squeeze in two principal bedrooms, and someone will almost certainly take up residence in the loft as well.
Inside the little entrance porch is the main living room — an open-plan living and dining room measuring a little over 16ft by 13ft. This room is dual-aspect and has a fireplace.
Off this is a fitted kitchen with red-tiled walls, and there’s a ground-floor bathroom with a bath and shower head.
The loft, reached by a Stira stairs, has a tiny window looking out over the garden and some much bigger skylights, and there’s a dark wood floor in here. There’s also a shed on the grounds.
The cottage is for sale for €220,000 with joint agents Galway Real Estate in Galway city, (091) 565 488, and Matt O’Sullivan Auctioneers in Clifden, (095) 21066.