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COLLOONEY |
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The sight worth stopping for in the village of COLLOONEY , five
miles south of Sligo where the N4 and N17 separate, is the Teeling
Monument at the northern entrance to the village, built to commemorate
Bartholomew Teeling, hero of the Battle of Carricknagat. The battle was
fought nearby during the rebellion of 1798, when a combined Franco-Irish
force - on its way from Killala in County Mayo, where the French had
landed , to Ballinamuck in County Longford - was held up by a single
strategically placed English gun. Teeling charged up the hill and shot
the gunner dead, turning the tide of the engagement. After their defeat
at Ballinamuck the French were treated as prisoners of war, but five
hundred Irish troops were massacred. Irish-born Teeling, who was an
officer in the French army, was later hanged in Dublin. The monument
links Teeling and his fallen comrades with subsequent generations of
Irish freedom fighters.
Close to Collooney is the battlemented Markree Castle , originally
seventeenth-century but with grandiose Victorian extensions, which is
still the home of the Coopers, who used to be Sligo's most powerful
Anglo-Irish family. It's set in impressive parklands and is now open as
a hotel (tel 071/67800, www.markreecastle.ie ; over £130/¬165.07), and
also houses an excellent, though expensive, restaurant . Midweek,
non-residents can wander in for a drink in the bar. Comfort and
gastronomic delights at a more affordable level are on offer at Glebe
House (closed Nov-Feb; tel 071/67787, www.glebehouse.com ;
£55-70/¬69.84-88.88), just outside Collooney on the other side of town.
A "restaurant with rooms" which is also open to non-residents rather
than a guesthouse, this Georgian former rectory is filled with an
assortment of heavy, Victorian-and-later furniture - but is attractive
not so much for its decor as for its food and the freshness of the
ingredients, many of which are grown in the garden outside (restaurant
open daily June-Aug; variable for the rest of the year).
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