A seaside holiday home betwenn the Burren and Connemara, near Shannon - Luxury private vacation rentals

Set right on the shore of Galway Bay, this is a late 18th century seaside summer home built by a friend of George Washington and once lived in by Lady Gregory of Abbey Theatre fame who entertained, amongst others, W. B. Yeats and G. B. Shaw here. The house consists of 5 double bedrooms, four with en suite bathrooms and one with a private bathroom. 4 have showers over the baths. Kitchen and dining for 10, a drawing room and a sitting room with no TV, a big sofa and lots of books.

The house is pure "World of Interiors" - superbly decorated, very comfortable, and stunningly attractive.

One of the nicest pubs in the West is within a short walk, and is noted for its fabulous fresh crab cakes.

Below Galway city is the famous Burren Landscape. This sparse limestone area has been eroded in such a way that its numerous cracks have formed mini sheltered spaces making it a flora and fauna oddity. Experts come from all over the world to see wild flowers that have seeded from as far as the alps and the Antarctic!

Galway City is a vibrant student city and well worth a day trip. Full of cheerful restaurants, pedestrian streets, buskers etc.

If you want to venture further, Limerick (Angela's Ashes fame) is worth a visit as well as the folk park at Bunratty Castle. A day trip to the Aran Islands, horse riding in stunning countryside or even on the beach, golf at Lahinch or Doonbeg, and Shannon is little more than one hour - an ideal location.

Havens & Hideaways, 71 Waterloo Road, Dublin 4, IRELAND
Tel (+353-1) 2889355 From Canada & the US 1(800) 894 5712 Fax (+353-1) 288 9282

Specialists in luxury hotels, country inn accommodation, & staffed and serviced or self catering luxury castles, historic homes, elegant country estate, hidden cottages, apartment and penthouse rentals and driver guides for vacations, family celebrations, weddings, alumni tours, corporate events, incentives & meetings and upscale tours of Ireland.

Mount Vernon was built in the late eighteenth century as a residence for Colonel William Persse of Roxborough. Persse served in the American War of Independence and subsequently became a friend and corresponded with George Washington 1^st President of American with whom he shared an interest in plants and gardens. Mount Vernon was named after George Washington’s residence in Virginia, USA. The walled garden contains original stone terraces and three Cypress trees which are thought to have been sent as gift to Colonel Persse by George Washington.

In the nineteenth century Mount Vernon passed to the Skerret family, originally the Huscareds, an ancient Norman family and one of the Tribes of Galway. It was used as a dower house for the principal seat of this branch of the family at nearby Finavara House, Co. Clare.

In the latter half of the nineteenth century Mount Vernon’s became the summer home of Sir Hugh Lane the noted art collector whose bequest of Impressionist paintings created the Dublin Municipal Gallery of Art. Soon afterwards it came to his relative Lady Augusta Gregory of Coole Park, Co. Galway. (Lady Gregory was great grand daughter to William Persse and aunt to Sir Hugh Lane.)

Lady Augusta Gregory was a pivotal figure in the Irish Cultural Renaissance at the turn of the century, both as a patron and an inspiration to young artists and writers of the period, and also as a folk lorist, dramatist, and poet herself, notably for Cuchulainn of Muirthenine,a history of Ireland in the Gaelic style and a source for both Synge and Yeats and the plays, Spreading the News and The Golden Apple. It was Lady Gregory who, with W B Yeats, was largely responsible for the creation of the Abbey theatre in Dublin in 1904, and whose plays fuelled the Celtic literary revival of the period. And it was at Mount Vernon that many leading figures of this renaissance stayed and worked: W B and J B Yeats, George Russell (A E), Sean O’Casey, Synge, G B Shaw, Edward Martyn and Gogarty among others.

The house contains a number of original features from this period including three fireplaces designed and built by the Pre-Raphaelite painter Augustus John, an Arts and Crafts style staircase and batiks and painted panels from Sir William Gregory’s tenure as Governor of Ceylon. Since the purchase of Coole Park by the Land Commission and its subsequent demolition in 1941 (11 years after Lady Gregory’s death), Mount Vernon represents the sole architectural link with Lady Gregory’s very important artistic and literary legacy, and is itself a very fine example of an unusual vernacular style.

Directions:
From Galway take the N18 south; turn right onto the N67 at Kilcolgan, pass through Kinvarra and continue on the coast road for 4 miles before turning right for New Quay. Pass Linnane’s Lobster Bar and take the next right, and Mount Vernon is the fourth house on the left.

Mount Vernon, Galway Bay