| Captivating Connacht  By
Malcolm Rogers
This week the travel spotlight falls on Connacht in Ireland’s west.
MALCOLM ROGERS looks at the diverse delights of this unique province.
Connacht has been described as the most quintessentially Irish part of Ireland,
a place of shores and loughs, mild rain and sea mists.
Here lies one of the last bastions of the Irish language, a natural landscape
bordered on the east by the River Shannon and to the west the mighty Atlantic.
The past isn’t a foreign country here, it’s a neighbouring
province, easy to visit.
In Connacht the turf smoke still wafts into restless skies from straggles
of white cottages in a land set apart from the rest of Europe. Striking
landscapes of lough, moorland and coastal water adjoin beaches remote
enough for any would-be Robinson Crusoe.
Poets and painters have lived and died trying to capture the essence of
this ethereal, stone-wall stitched landscape, its misty rushes, brown
bogs and old statues.
Connacht is home to two of Ireland’s national parks — Connemara
and Mayo — each showing different aspects of this unique terrain.
This land of fidgety skies and ethereal silvery light, of boreens bleeding
with fuchsia bushes, is an ideal place for sedate touring. Connacht’s
landscape is, of course, a product of its history as well as its geography.
Although the province was not held by occupying forces until fairly late
in Irish history, those intrepid travellers the Vikings had already made
their presence felt throughout Ireland by the eighth century. They pushed
off early doors to return to the easier pickings of Ireland’s more
easterly and southerly coastlines.
The Anglo-Normans were similarly deterred but eventually mounted an invasion
across the Shannon. It took them more than a century to build a bridgehead
in Connacht and today’s traveller will notice that traces of their
occupation grow significantly scarcer the further west you go.
The EU, in the guise of the Celtic Tiger, is the latest invader into this
precious land. Its effect has been felt — and not all bad. Holiday
homes have gone up in some profusion, but on the other hand whole families
have been able to stay at home, where in times gone by would have emigrated
to Britain.
In the fairly gentle lands beyond the Shannon plenty of castles rise abruptly
from the landscape. On the easterly side of the hills of Maamturk, Norman
wisdom, so to speak, prevailed. But further west, and the Norman writ,
just like the Celtic Tiger’s, conspicuously failed to run. Any walk
through the Connacht countryside will provide you with a lesson in its
history but, if exercising your body rather your mind is top of your list,
then there’s no better place. Everything from gliding to golfing
is available.
Game fishing in Ireland means plunging into the waters equipped with waders
and rod in pursuit of native trout and salmon.
The waters of the west offer the angler some of the best pike fishing
in Europe. The west coast is where the sea is big and the air tastes of
salt — ideal for marine angling. A chartered boat can take you and
your friends to shipwrecks that are home to denizens of the deep such
as conger, pollock and coalfish.
Of course you may want cruising without a catch. Along the winding banks
of the Shannon-Erne Navigation System you’ll slip by Connacht’s
more serene scenery where the waters gently lap the banks. As you sail
along, don’t forget it was a Galway man who landed in the New World
first, jumping out to pull the rowing boat of Christopher Columbus ashore.
The Shannon’s broad, quiet waters are ideal for cruising —
the only crowds you’ll encounter are flocks of shelduck or swans
patrolling the waters in search of lunch.
There’s a lot of ways to get wet in Connacht. Waterfalls are extra
misty, ditto the sea when the weather performs its party piece and blows
half the Atlantic into your face. You can frolic in the water —
surf, sail or swim, or simply sit by the water’s edge and watch
the seals do it.
An energetic way of sampling Connacht’s waters is available up-coast.
The Atlantic’s crashing seas and trustworthy winds make it a top
surfing destination. A hundred miles of coastline, stretching south from
Rossnowlagh to Easky in Co. Sligo, provide exhilarating sport. For the
not-so-experienced the moderate surf at Strandhill near Sligo provides
safe but serious diversion.
The West is a part of the island which casts a unique spell of its own.
It’s home to Aran sweaters, Connemara ponies and even has its own
unique kind of lakes — turloughs — which appear and disappear
with the weather. It’s home to two of Ireland’s holiest sites,
Croagh Patrick and Knock Shrine, as well as its most exciting city, Galway.
And don’t forget, Connacht’s an hour nearer the sunset than
the rest of Ireland. You’ll want to stay outside, wandering along
beaches or horse trekking in the hills.
After being out in the Connacht air for so long, you’ll find plenty
to enjoy inside as well such as turf fires, hot toddies and wall-to-wall
craic.
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