Set the wheels in motion in Mayo
AROUND the pretty town of Louisburgh are three designated cycle trails, the longest and most arduous of which is a 26-kilometre circuit heading south-east towards the Sheeffry Hills.
If it sounds too gruelling, you can opt for the more sedentary pleasure of watching the cyclists sweating past your house in the townland of Culleen, Upper Kilsallagh.
Built in 1998, this detached dormer bungalow looks fairly modest from the outside but is very comfortably fitted out within, and has beautiful views of the mountains of Mayo.
It’s 2,016 sq ft with four bedrooms. Only one is upstairs, and it shares this upper level with a bathroom and a skylit lounge.
The ground floor has the other three bedrooms, including the master bedroom which runs the depth of the house and with an en-suite, a walk-in wardrobe and French doors to the patio.
The main living room on the lower floor is an open-plan kitchen, dining room and living room measuring roughly 24ft by 15ft. The kitchen is fitted with beech countertops and the windows have shutters, and there’s a solid-fuel stove in here with a back boiler, for heating the house (although there’s oil-fired central heating as well). Also on this level there’s a study, a utility room and the main family bathroom.
The grounds are unusually welcoming for such a wild, mountainous area, with an orchard, a vegetable bed, shrubs and trees and a wild flower garden. There’s also a powered wooden shed, where you could store your bicycle if you cultivated an ambition to do any cycling.
The house is about eight kilometres from Louisburgh and 15 kilometres from Westport. It’s for sale with FM Auctioneers in Louisburgh (098) 66525 and has an asking price of €310,000.