Famine Cottages win CIE award

GABRIEL Kavanagh and his hard-working team of Captain, Sailor, Sally and Buzz at the Famine Cottages in Fán have made such an impression on visitors that they have won a CIE Tours International Award of Excellence.

Ten years ago Gabriel turned two disused famine cottages and an adjoining ‘bothán’ into an attraction where visitors can get an insight into the way people lived in times past, the working life of West Kerry sheep farmers and the traditions they have inherited from past generations.

With help from his mother, Maureen, Gabriel conducts the tours explaining, for example, how people were able to forecast the weather in the days Met Éireann – with a cormorant flying high over the land being a sure sign of a coming storm. He shares local lore with the visitors, explaining for example, how a neighbour found her three daughters ‘dancing in the water’ after they drowned while collecting seaweed from the cliffs at Fán. Gabriel’s sheepdogs – the aforementioned Captain, Sailor, Sally and Buzz – play their part in the enterprise as well, rounding up cattle and sheep on the hillside to the great delight of their audiences.

CIE Tours lauded the sheep dog displays and the Famine Cottages tour ‘for consistently exceeding our visitors’ expectations’. It’s a plaudit that will surely see more visitors stopping at Fán and a well-earned tribute to Gabriel’s hard work. The Famine Cottages are open daily from the beginning of April to the end of October. Sheepdog demonstrations are by appointment only.

Gabriel Kavanagh, with his sister Joan Jordan, accepting the CIE Tours International Award of Excellence for the Famine Cottages in Fán from CIE Tours CEO Elizabeth Crabill and Chairperson Vivanne Jupp in Dublin City Hall.