Holiday in County Roscommon - west coast of Ireland, Galway

COUNTY ROSCOMMON

This long, thin, triangular county is almost surrounded by water, with the river Suck on the west, and the Shannon on the east, and both of these drain the centre to provide rich farmland and a gently rolling landscape. It has a county town of the same name, derived from the Gaelic ros - meaning wooded or gentle height and Coman - an early Irish saint and first Bishop of the Sea. Roscommon is a busy market town, and has some interesting sites such as the remains of the Norman castle, the Sacred Heart Church, and the old Gaol in the town square. The town has undergone rapid expansion in recent years, but the older centre still retains much of its charm, and this is repeated in the number of new bars and restaurants that have sprung up to cater for the increased population.

Strokestown, in the north of the county is one of only a few estate towns in Ireland specifically designed and built by the local land owners to house their workers. The Packenham-Mahon family planned to have the widest main street in Europe, and that for a time was what they had. The street ends at the entrance the Strokestown Park House, a huge seven bay, four storey mansion, with a two storey galleried kitchen wing, so the lady of the house could watch the staff at work without getting too close, and an equally large vaulted stable block, which one visitor described as 'a Cathedral to the horse'. The last member of the family to have lived here was Olive Packenham-Mahon who eventually sold the house in 1978, having been reduced to living, eating, and sleeping in the drawing room, and selling off the odd picture to keep solvent. The lucky buyer was a local garage owner who was only looking for a plot to store his fleet of trucks. Having bought the house and grounds he then managed to secure the entire family archive and the remaining contents, accumulated over 300 years, and so has provided a marvelous look into another world. After a period of extensive restoration, you can now trawl through the house on guided tours and see how the other half lived, as most of the furniture and fittings are original. In the stable block is the Irish National Famine Museum, which gives a vivid, and even-handed, account of those terrible years when a quarter of the entire population either died or emigrated. To blame the landlords for the evictions is too simplistic as the government did nothing to help, and many had no resources to assist their tenants either by feeding them, or by paying for them to emigrate. This is a fascinating and chilling story of 19th century Europe's greatest humanitarian disaster, and is well worth visiting.

If you are in the county to trace your ancestors, the County Roscommon Heritage and Genealogy Centre is situated in St John's Church, Strokestown, and will give you all the information that you need.

Boyle Abbey, near the border with County Sligo, is the most complete example of a Cistercian monastery in all Ireland. Rather than suffering the fate of most other religious institutions and being razed to the ground by the army, the soldiers ordered to do this converted the buildings to their own use. The Abbey was established in 1148, on ground given to the monks by the MacDermott clan who, keen to ingratiate themselves with them, donated a thousand acres to them to found their community. At the height of its prosperity Boyle Abbey controlled vast tracts of land and supported over 400 people, but at the time of its dissolution there were only a handful of monks left. The estate was eventually passed on to the King family at the start of the 17th century, who turned it into a garrisoned fortress, and so it remained for the next one hundred and fifty years. In 1788 the garrison moved on leaving some interesting relics of their stay, such as graffiti carved into the gatehouse doorjambs. The layout of the buildings gives an idea of life behind the walls for the monks, with the refectory where they eat in silence whilst being read passages from the Bible, to the dormitories with a calefactory, or hot-room, for those cold days. In the Abbey church the stone decoration is much less austere, and if you look at the last capital on the north wall you can see 14 little, grimacing, men peeping out from some foliage.

The regiment that garrisoned the Abbey, the Connacht Rangers, only moved a few miles away to the King House, an early 18th century mansion built by the King family who raised the regiment and installed them firstly in the Abbey, and then in the house when they moved to an adjoining estate. The regiment were a rough lot and having left their mark on the Abbey, they carried on the tradition at King House, and when they eventually moved out in 1920, the building was in a state of disrepair. However, twenty years ago the government came to the rescue and now the house is restored and home to the regimental museum.

The estate that the King family moved to was called Rockingham, on the shores of Lough Key, and although the house burnt down in the late 1960s the surrounding parkland was taken over and converted into a Forest Park by the Irish government. This is an area of about a thousand acres on the edge of the lough, with several islands, a bog garden, lots of trails through the woodland, and some underground tunnels. There is the opportunity to rent a boat on the river Boyle, which connects with the Shannon, and there is some excellent fishing.

On the west side of the county, near the town of Castlerea, is Clonalis House, the ancestral home of the O'Conor Clan. This Victorian house is the latest to be built on land that the family have held for over one thousand and houses an amazing collection of artifacts relating to them. The O'Conors were probably the most important clan in Ireland and number 11 High Kings of Ireland, and 26 Kings of Connacht in their family tree. The house is the resting place of the Irish Coronation Stone, Carolan's harp, Carolan being the last of the great Gaelic bards, and The Cross of Cong, an ornamental cross carried by the High Kings on their process through the realm. Although the house is now operating as an hotel, you can see these relics and check out your family connections to this most royal of all the great families.

The entire eastern border of the county is water, and is a popular area for a boating holiday in Ireland. From here you can connect with most of the waterways in the country, and you can get to Dublin along the Royal Canal, or follow the river downstream to the port of Limerick, an ideal reason to use Roscommon as your base to explore the whole of the country. There are traditional holiday cottages to rent near Boyle, self-catering near Carrick-on-Shannon, holiday houses with a log fire in Castlerea and rural cottages for a weekend retreat in all parts of Roscommon.

Irish tourist information

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