Cath C
July 2023
Absolute gem of a place to stay, quiet and peaceful rural location and yet you're only 5 minutes away from a small town with grocery shops, pubs and takeaways etc. You're also ideally located for daytrips out exploring Northern Ireland with Belfast around 45 mins to the East and the Giant's Causeway 45 mins to the North. Add to that you're up the road from the Seamus Heaney Homeplace which is well worth a look.
The cottage itself is deceptively big, with 2 good sized bedrooms (a double and a twin as per the pictures, despite the description stating 2 doubles). The Kitchen is large enough to house a full size pool table, which also doubles as the main dining table. This makes it a bit higher than a regular table, which made it a challenge for the kids to eat, but it's easily solved by using the other fold out table located in the cottage. Plus the pool table was a Godsend on a rainy afternoon!
The kitchen and bathroom look like they've been refurbished recently and contain everything you'd need. The sitting room is smaller but has great views from the dual aspect window to watch the bees at work in the mini wildflower meadow to the side of the cottage. You can also sit here and look straight down the lane and across the fields. In fact when we arrived there were lambs in the paddock near the house, which thrilled the kids.
Damian and his family gave us a very warm welcome and gifted us a basket of provisions on our arrival, which was very much appreciated. They were also able to share a bit about the history of the cottage and the Poet who used to live there. A collection of his poems are on the bookshelf in the house - it's lovely to read a poet's take on the places and people around you. Lends even more character to this already impressive house.
Would absolutely recommend and hope we will stay again in future.