Forage with Wild Food Mary, dine at the gorgeous 17th-century Roundwood House and discover a lost village in the Slieve Blooms: Laois is under-rated...
Poor Laois. For many tourists it’s just a name on a blurry sign as they zip through on the M7, M8 and M9 motorways to destinations where there is the neon of the sea and the tinsel of mountains.
When you flick through Lonely Planet, the portents are not good: “Little-visited Laois is often overlooked as drivers zoom past . . . ” is its sad introduction.
Yep, it’s a county that just can’t compete with the Atlantic counties, or even with Kilkenny or Tipperary, in the “come hither” department. In fairness to Lonely Planet, if you persevere for a few more sentences, the guide book points out that there is an allure to Laois. A real hidden corner of Ireland, it says. Or, a prime candidate for Lesser Spotted Ireland, in Irish Times speak.
Okay, any time I have sat down in January and plotted my summer holidays, Laois has never emerged at the top of the list. It might not be as dramatic as the rugged Macgillycuddy’s Reeks or the Skelligs or Aran or the Rock of Cashel. It might not jingle like Killarney or Tramore or Salthill or Strandhill. But this road less taken brought me to a more discreet and mildly magical place this summer.
Eye-pleasing house
Five kilometres from the town of Mountrath, the first wonderful stop is unveiled in the foothills of the Slieve Bloom mountains. Down an avenue roofed with trees and dappled with sunshine lies Roundwood House, an eye-pleasing Georgian House dating from the 17th century. This Palladian villa is gorgeous inside, with high ceilings, great windows, authentic period pieces and architecture.
The floorboards are like the deck of a galleon: ancient, well-trodden but comforting. A “don’t touch” museum it is not. It’s a guest house and restaurant, and part of the Hidden Ireland group.
The house is old but the vibe is young. Its owners, Hannah and Paddy Flynn, have taken over the running of the house in the past few years from Hannah’s parents, who ran it for three decades. The atmosphere is relaxed, laid-back and mellow. If a particular beverage company did Airbnb, this is what it would look and feel like. It’s very much a fully lived-in family home.
We have our four-year-old daughter, Sadhbh, with us. Within seconds she has struck up a friendship with the couple’s young daughters, Amelie (7) and Lucie (5), and over the next day the three explore every inch of the house and the amazing grounds of long-grassed meadows, with their broadleaf woodlands of oak, beech and ash. A serene rainless sky helps.
For a child this is what a carefree summer’s day is all about. Animals abound: hens, ducks, geese, two dogs, and cattle in the surrounding fields. There used to be a peacock but he was not replaced; he made a cacophony of noise during the night that undid the spectacular daytime displays of feathers.
There are other unexpected discoveries to be made in the woodlands and meadows. We meet Mary Bulfin, aka Wild Food Mary, a forager and chef, who acts as a guide on a novel journey. Mary is a fascinating guide, full of knowledge and information, with a lively disposition. We walk no more than 500m, through a woods, a field overgrown with grasses, a hedgerow, past an oak and through a rhododendron passage. But it involves a kind of epic journey that opens up a new micro-universe of grasses, nuts, flowers, plants and weeds, all either edible or medicinal.
Armed with a small utility knife, which she uses like a machete, Mary gathers massive mushrooms, which turn a suspicious toxic blue immediately after being picked. “Are they poisonous?” we ask. “Not at all, but those ones over there are,” she says, pointing to an innocuous-looking group of mushrooms with pointy heads.
And then there are the nettles, wild garlic, sloes, whin, St John’s wort and a host of other stuff. Earlier in the Slieve Blooms she picked fraughans – blueberries or bilberries that are native to this corner of Ireland – which have a wonderful tart, sweet taste. There was lots of information.
Be careful picking wild garlic leaves: they often grow next to bluebells, whose leaves are similar but as poisonous as they are beautiful. That long, ground-hugging sticky weed you find in your back garden is highly edible, healthy and can be juiced. In times past it was bunched together and used as a kind of sieve. It would catch the impurities as goat’s milk was poured through it. Whin (furze or gorse) is edible. You can use it in salads or make wine or tea from it.
Areal bonus of the excursion was that it provided the inspiration for dinner. Paddy is an excellent chef, and the meal he prepares that evening includes all that has been foraged. The blue mushrooms make a starter (we hesitate until Mary has taken her first bite). The garlic, fraughans and other plants all find their way into garnishes and dessert.
Like a lot of the Hidden Ireland houses, dinner is a communal affair, with all the guests sitting around one table. You kind of fear it will be all awkward small talk, but it turns out to be very convivial.
Walking the Slieve Blooms
The next day I drive up into the heart of the Slieve Blooms, where I meet Gerry Hanlon, an amiable shopkeeper from Mountmellick and a stalwart of the local walking group. These mountains are not Ireland’s most vertical: the highest is about 500m and the tops tend to be round and a bit boggy compared with the more jagged mountains farther west.
But in the context of the midlands they are dramatic, rising suddenly out of the bogs. Unusually for a hill walk, we begin at the summit point, work our way down to the lowest point and come up again. That is at the Ridge of Capard, a viewing point where you can see a vast panorama of the midland plains that takes in 12 counties. In the far distance, you can see the Wicklow mountains, the Comeraghs, Galtymore, and the Knockmealdowns 103km away.
Here on the ridge, you can see the fruits of projects to open up the Slieve Blooms to recreational walkers: dozens of waymarked trails and boardwalks erected over the mushiest terrain. These trails criss-cross the range from more than half a dozen starting points, including Kinnitty in Co Offaly on the far side.
The walk we partake in is about 12km, a variation on an Eco trail that skirts the river Barrow before rising through forest and meadows up the Ridge of Capard.
On our descent, Hanlon and I stay off the roads and tracks and follow obscure – and sometimes very overgrown – pathways through the wonderful broadleaf forests (and some newer coniferous growth) of the former Capard estate. The trailhead for this walk is at Glenbarrow, which is a nice picnic spot. On this Saturday its ample car park is jammed: a good sign.
The walk from Glenbarrow includes a broad path among elegant tall trees near the river. Soon, you come to a waterfall named Clamp Hole. From there the path follows steeper ground uphill as it rises above the river valley.
We pass long-derelict stone quarries: what back-breaking toil must have been involved. We stay with the river for a while, walking up on wide flags of sandstone rocks that protrude above the water. The river’s water has eroded and smoothed the sandstone so much that it looks like the limestone flags of the Burren. And what do they look like? Holey Emmental cheese.
Another remarkable sight is the Lost Village, the ruins of a settlement of houses near the remote hilltop, some of which were occupied until the early 20th century. The most extraordinary ruins are of what was once a prosperous stone farmhouse, which has become engulfed by the forest.
Wild Food Mary’s tutorial the previous day has not been totally lost. Along the way, I spot some St. John’s wort, along with an impressive blackthorn bush and its sloes. I do not come across any fraughans, however. They are a little bit like Laois, those native berries: a little overlooked and elusive but well worth the effort of the search.
https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/people/lesser-spotted-ireland-midlands-magic-in-overlooked-laois-1.2316089
Author Archive: RoundwoodBlog
Irish Independent, January 12 2014
Posted on by RoundwoodBlog
One of Ireland’s most unusual libraries is set to open this week – with the world being asked to decide what should be in its collection.
The Library of the History of Civilisation is the brainchild of Frank Kennan, who lives in Roundwood House, a remarkable Palladian villa nestled in the foothills of the Slieve Bloom mountains in Co Laois.
After a year long odyssey trying to step outside the maelstrom of everyday news to discover where the human race was headed, he has come up with around 700 books he believes sums up our journey so far.
The collection was helped by a “shocking number of opinions” from guests who come to stay at the house – saved from ruin by the Irish Georgian Society and taken over by Frank and his wife Rosemary in the 1980s.
“There was no one came into the drawing room and said they were a philosopher, but there were an enormous number of philosophers,” he said.
But now he wants to take it beyond the drawing room, and is asking the wider world to help determine the permanent collection.
Finishing touches are being put on a purpose-built library in one of the old grain stores at the rear of the historic house which will house the books.
The library attempts to map out what French philosopher Voltaire described as the steps by which men passed from barbarism to civilisation, according to Frank.
But he says years of reading and thinking about civilisation and what it meant led him to less than obvious choices for the project.
“It’s easy to say Newton, Einstein, Dante, Shakespeare, these are books we would all agree on, and the Bible and the Koran,” he said.
“But I think in looking in books, I had a sudden realisation that actually everything is involved in civilisation.
“So books on spices show us spices affected our history, and so did salt and pepper – in terms of trade routes, and taxes, and revolutions.”
Frank said there would be little serious argument about the first 300 or 400 books in the collection, but the remainder will constantly change as civilisation itself changes.
Some will become less important and others will become more so.
“The library doesn’t match most people’s ideas of a library. Books don’t usually get thrown out of a library,” he said.
The quest has left him optimistic about civilisation, he says, despite the chance the human race could “wreck it” with the bomb or climate change.
“I’ve become more optimistic the more I read, the more I think about it,” he said.
“An awful lot of people spend their time thinking the world is getting worse, or we’re facing incredible dangers or we’re going in all sorts of directions and none of them mean much.
“But if you know we are on an upward path, it would stop us worrying, stop journalists writing about the terribleness of the world and talking utter rubbish about the good old days.”
The library is to open this week, and the public is being invited to visit or get in touch to offer their opinion on what should be in – and out – of the collection.
They should expect to be challenged.
Women Take the Lead in the Big House Revival, Mary Leyland, The Irish Times, February, 2011
Posted on by RoundwoodBlog
Their houses are big, historic and challenging – but they are determined to keep them open for business. Three young women explain why they've become the chatelaines of their family homes...
FRANK and Rosemarie Kennan are so synonymous with Roundwood House in Co Laois that it’s easy to understand their daughter Hannah’s belief that when she went off to university she would never come back. But come back she has, with her two small children and husband, Paddy Flynn, the Galway musician, with whom, eventually, she plans to introduce art and musical events at this lovely house, built between 1738 and 1748, possibly by Francis Bindon. “The idea was that one of us would be involved when my parents wanted to retire, but by then all the rest of the family were on very definite career paths. Frank and Rosemarie insisted that when the time came we were to regard Roundwood simply as a property and nothing more – they didn’t want any of us to feel under pressure. If we did decide to take over, it was to be for the right reasons. It’s not the kind of thing you can do just to keep everyone happy. Paddy and I took about a year to think about it, we didn’t even say anything to anyone until we were sure.”
Roundwood House and its remaining 18 acres of woodland and pasture passed through various hands, including those of the Georgian Society, before the Kennans decided to restore it both as a family home and a business 30 years ago. “I grew up with guests in the house, that’s always been the norm for me. But it’s a very special place, there’s a strong personal tie and it’s hard to regard it just as a business. My parents put every penny they had into restoring and refurbishing it, and now that they have moved out (to the coach-house) it’s still a family environment and our guests seem to like that.”
There’s a lot to like at Roundwood House, from its double-height balconied hall to its restored outbuildings. After three years in charge of what is at times a hectic schedule, with five-course dinners prepared by herself and Paddy every evening of the season, 32-year old Hannah has the confidence to say that yes, they are in it for the long haul.
https://www.irishtimes.com/business/commercial-property/women-take-the-lead-in-the-big-house-revival-1.562495