Day Three

On day three we head for Roscommon, where a forgotten landscape is being brought to light in the award-winning Cruachan Aí Heritage Centre. Cruachan is one of the most important and best preserved Celtic Royal Sites in Europe, and the medieval village of Tulsk, Co. Roscommon is the setting for the new centre. An amazing array of archaeological remains are located within a four mile radius of the centre, dating from the Stone Age.

We then move on to the wonderful Strokestown Park House, a fully-furnished Georgian Mansion, and see Ireland’s last remaining Galleried Kitchen. The National Irish Famine Museum at Strokestown Park uses what is regarded as the best private archive on the Great Irish Famine to explain the history of that tragic era in Ireland’s past and to draw parallels with the occurrence of Famine throughout the world today. The Six-Acre Walled Garden has been fully restored to its former glory and is home to the longest Herbaceous Border in Ireland and Britain. Visit the recently-restored Georgian fruit and vegetable Garden, which boasts the oldest restored Peach House and Vinery in Ireland.

We then leave Strokestown and head for Carrick on Shannon. Built on the River Shannon, this is both the County town of Leitrim and the cruising capital of Ireland. Carrick-on-Shannon, or Carrick as it is known locally, is a thriving centre and boasts a beautiful modern marina. Here you can relax and unwind for the afternoon with a cruise on the Shannon or we can drive to Boyle and visit King House, a magnificently restored Georgian Mansion built around 1730 by Sir Henry King whose family were one of the most powerful and wealthy in Ireland. 

Also in Boyle you can see a well preserved Cistercian Monastery which was founded in the 12th century under the patronage of the local ruling family, the MacDermotts. Though mutilated during the 17th and 18th centuries when it was used to accommodate  military garrison, Boyle Abbey nevertheless retains its ability to impress the visitor as one of the most formidable of the early Cistercian foundations in Ireland.

From Boyle we travel to Argina. Arigna was, until its recent close-down, Ireland’s only coal-mining centre. Arigna Valley is green and beautiful, and not in any way the kind of bleak and dusty place one associates with coal mining. Arigna is home to the Arigna Mining Experience, Ireland’s first coal mining museum. The exhibition traces 400 years of mining and all tour guides are ex-miners, ensuring that they can relate a history of a life that no longer exists in a way which is interesting and educational for all ages.