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MOHILL |
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About six miles east of Drumsna lies MOHILL , a trim, busy village
reached by turning off the main road south of Drumsna. A sculpture on
the main street commemorates its most famous son, Turlough O'Carolan
(1670-1738), the blind harpist and composer. The last of the court bards,
he lived by travelling round the chieftains' households playing his new
compositions. He was also reputed to have been as great with the whiskey
bottle as he was on the harp; it's said that on his deathbed he asked
for a cup of the stuff, and finding that he hadn't the strength to drink
it, touched the cup with his lip, saying that two old mates shouldn't
part without a kiss. Mohill was the site of an abbey founded in the
sixth century by St Manachan, but today its associations are entirely
secular: it's a coarse fishing centre, with fifteen different choices of
lake and river in a five-mile radius. You can get B&B accommodation on a
grand scale at the nineteenth-century stone-built Glebe House , set in
beautiful parklands a couple of miles north of town on the road to
Ballinamore (tel 078/31086, www.glebehouse.com ; £55-70/¬69.84-88.88).
At a more modest level there's The Traveller's Rest guesthouse in the
village (tel 078/31174; £33-40/¬41.90-50.79). Fitzpatrick's pub has set
dancing on a Tuesday night, country and western at weekends.
Lough Rynn House stands in a fine location on the shores of the lough,
and was first acquired by one Nathaniel Clements, a successful Dublin
banker and politician, in 1750. The Clements dynasty, earls of Sligo,
built the original Rynn Castle - an exact copy of a house in Ingestry in
Staffordshire, England - in 1833, and in 1878 extended it to the
Scottish Baronial pile you see now. By this time the house was the
centre of an estate that encompassed a massive ninety thousand acres,
and the grounds include 1840s' farm buildings, the estate office - a
picturesque building by the architect Digby Wyatt, who was also
responsible for the Senate Chambers in Leinster House, Dublin - a pretty
summer house, as well as the ruins of a seventeenth-century castle and a
dolmen. In the meantime visitors are welcome to walk around the grounds.
The area around Mohill, rich rolling pasture land crisscrossed by hedged
lanes, makes for good cycling. Further east, the terrain becomes rougher
and less interesting, but CARRIGALLEN , around eight miles northeast of
Mohill, is a pleasant enough eighteenth-century town, with excellent
fishing all around. It's at a point in Carrigallen parish that the three
provinces of Ulster, Leinster and Connacht meet, though nothing about
the modest demeanour of the town suggests it.
ROOSKY , just over the border in County Roscommon, straddles the N4
about seven miles south of Mohill. It's a pleasant riverside village
catering for holidaying anglers, with B&B at Shannonville (tel
078/38184; £33-40/¬41.90-50.79), a smart new house set squarely back off
the main road, and more upmarket accommodation at the Shannon Key West
Hotel , a smart and imposing building overlooking the bridge (tel
078/38800, www.keywest.firebird.net ; £90-110/¬114.28-139.67). Bar food
is on offer at The Weir Lodge and you can hear a variety of live music
at Reynold's bar throughout the summer.
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