illustration by Fuchsia Macaree
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Great outdoors | burren
Top, the shimmering At Atlantic makes for a scenic coastal route, and Jane O'Donoghue of the Tea and Garden Rooms. Left, Sadie Ch Chowen-Doyle of Bu Burren Perfumery, below, with da daughter Celeste.
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december 2013/january 2014
needs. Quality is the only thing that counts on the Burren.” After more coffee and more cakes in the pretty Perfumery tea rooms, Sadie shows us the perfumes formulated as customers watch, the soap-making room, the shelves of creams and bright soaps like gemstones. “I think we’re hungry nowadays,” Sadie remarks, “for the qualities the Burren can offer: authenticity, connectedness, purity.” Later, we take the dramatic Atlantic coastal road that leads to Ballyvaughan. On one side, the Burren limestone falls away into pounding surf; on the other, the road is lined by Ireland’s ubiquitous hedges of fuchsia. At Ballyvaughan, the coast breaks up into quieter bays, with the famous Flaggy Shore of rocks and smooth stones just across the inlet at New Quay. We pause at the Tea and Garden Rooms (An Fear Ghorta, Ballyvaughan, 065 707 7157; tearoomsballyvaughan.com) on the waterfront for yet another pit stop. The beautiful gardens are worth a visit in themselves; so too
is the café, its counter as we enter lined with home-baked cakes. Jane O’Donoghue has run the Tea and Garden Rooms for five years – but though she works hard, she finds time for the Burren. “We have our own hens and eggs; my ideal day is to make some egg sandwiches, go into the Burren and picnic on the limestone.” We leave the Burren, pausing at Lady Gregory’s former estate of Coole Park (Gort, Co Galway, 091 631 804; coolepark.ie), home of the famous Autograph Tree, with the initials of WB Yeats and others carved into its bark. Gregory’s house is long gone – but a turlough is there, draining now as summer approaches; and on the far bank, the ground begins to rise towards the Burren. We think of Yeats standing here, and imagining how the waters “Run underground, rise in a rocky place / In Coole demesne, and there to finish up / Spread to a lake and drop into a hole …” It is a beautiful place, the Burren, and inspiring: providing food not merely for a greedy stomach – but for the soul too.