Weekending - Shannon Region by Vitali Vitaliev
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Why go?
With no linguistic and immigration barriers and few cultural differences with Britain, Ireland can be called “near-abroad” - a country where British visitors are bound to feel almost at home. County Clare and the Shannon Region offer pleasant pastoral landscapes, colourful villages and towns, traditional Irish music and a multitude of top-class golf courses, open all year round. Due to the moderating effects of the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf Stream, the climate is very mild, and the average winter temperature is 10 C. Many hotels, guest-houses and golf clubs have special Christmas deals, and eating out is generally much cheaper than anywhere in Britain.
The Flight
Ryanair operate up to four one-hour-long flights daily from London Stansted to Shannon, with standard fares starting from £59 including taxes. Visit the airline’s website to see this week's special offers. Buses to Ennis, Clare’s main town 16 miles away, are infrequent, but a 35-minute taxi ride will cost £17. Alternatively, there are plenty of car-hire outlets at the airport.
The Hotels
(Prices are for a double room, including breakfast)
£250 Everything in Dromoland Castle, the former ancestral home of the O’Briens – a native Gaelic family of royal blood, speaks luxury and exclusivity. Less than 10 miles away from Shannon, this award-winning five-star hotel on the grounds of a 16th century baronial castle has the atmosphere of a plush Pall Mall club: stately halls, open fires, family portraits, mahogany. Men are required to wear jackets and ties after 7 pm. Home to numerous foreign dignitaries on official visits to Ireland, Dromoland Castle is surrounded by 360 acres of parkland, where guests can go pheasant-hunting (between November and February), play golf on the 18-hole course, or fish in the lake, regularly stuffed with pike and trout. Dromoland Castle, Newmarket-on-Fergus, Co.Clare (00 353 61 368144, www.dromoland.ie)
£75 Opened in May, 2000, the 67-bedroom Woodstock Hotel in the outskirts of Ennis overlooks a championship-standard golf course, and guests wake up to the sight of golfers pushing their carts along it. Starting with the bright and airy reception area, the hotel’s interiors are warm and relaxing. The rooms are spacious and tastefully furnished, the staff is friendly, and the breakfast in Spikes Brasserie, with views of the Slieve Berhagh Hills, is second to none in the Ennis area. Woodstock Hotel, Shanaway Road, Ennis (00 353 65 6846600, www.woodstockhotel.com)
£40 Tucked away in a small square just off the main shopping street of Ennis, the three-star Temple Gate Hotel stands on the site of a 19th century convent and is only a short walk away from all the town’s attractions. All rooms are en-suite, with large bathrooms. In contrast to the comfortable simplicity of the hotel, its in-house Le Bistro restaurant is unexpectedly lavish and well suited for romantic candle-lit dining. Temple Gate Hotel, The Square, Ennis (00 353 65 682 3322, www.templegatehotel.com)
The restaurants
(Prices are for a three-course meal without wine)
£25 Part of the old Ennis town hall, the brand-new Town Hall restaurant, with unpretentious modernistic décor, is always full of buzz. In just one year of its existence, it has become a favourite haunt of local yuppies and dot.com professionals. The menu is not huge: half-a-dozen starters and twice as many mains – but the quality of the meals and their presentation are immaculate. And although the size of the portions is truly “American” (they are enormous!), the Town Hall is the best place in Ennis for fine European dining at reasonable prices. Try Deep Fried Prawns in Filo Pastry and Oriental Sauce as a starter and follow with Prime Fillet of Beef with an Irish Whiskey & Wholegrain Mustard Sauce. The Town Hall, O’Connell Street, Ennis (00 353 65 6828127)
£15 Cruise’s Pub and Restaurant is one of Clare’s must-do attractions. Started in 1658 and overlooking the 13th century Ennis Friary, it is well-known for its inventive Old World cuisine, with an emphasis on seafood, and its cosy interior of a traditional Irish pub: low ceilings, old Guinness posters, stone floor flags strewn with sawdust. Feasting on mouth-watering Atlantic Seafood Chowder, looking at the crackling fire in an open hearth and listening to live Irish music from the adjoining room, one can easily forget what century it is outside. Whatever you order, make sure your meal is accompanied by a fair amount of Cruise’s famous brown soda bread. Cruise’s Pub and Restaurant, Abbey Street, Ennis (00 353 65 41800)
£5 O’Brien’s Irish Sandwich Bars – Ireland’s answer to Starbucks – is a highly successful chain of coffee shops serving “quality Irish products”. Among them is “O’Brien’s Italian Coffee”- a bit of an oxymoron, yet with a fine flavour. For the best espresso in Ireland, go to O’Brien’s. If hungry and in need of a tasty and filling snack, try O’Brien’s Crambo – a multi-tiered giant of a sandwich, with ten different components including Irish Whiskey. O’Brien’s Sandwich Bar, 5-6 Salthouse Lane, Ennis (00 353 65 6822655)
The big night out
Nightlife in County Clare is largely limited to sipping Guinness in a pub to the accompaniment of a three-piece (banjo, fiddle and melodeon) Irish band playing repetitive, almost hypnotic, musical movements in different registers. For the best Irish music, drive to the village of Doolin (10 miles west of Ennis), which has a handful of good music pubs. In Ennis, try Cruise’s Pub (see above) which has performances nightly, or Ciaran’s Pub (Corner of Abbey and Fransis Streets) on Fridays and Sundays. For a less “traditional”night entertainment, choose between karaoke at Sulley’s Bar (Wednesdays) and disco dancing in one of the two (or in both) night-clubs of one and the same Queens Hotel in Abbey Street (Monday-Saturday, entry £5).
The classic sight
The 800-feet-high Cliffs of Moher, north of the town of Lahinch (35 miles from Shannon), stand defiantly on the coast of West Clare as giant natural ramparts against the aggressive might of the Atlantic Ocean. Stretching for almost 5 miles, they jump into view in all their dramatic beauty as you climb to the top of the 19th century O’Brien’s Tower. If you stare at the cliffs long enough, they start looking like huge battleships going out to sea and breaking the waves with their hulls of dark granite. Local wits assert that, if your eyes are sufficiently sharp, you can see America from here. This is unlikely, but the breathtaking panoramic views of the coastline, of mountains Kerry and Connemara and of the Aran Islands are guaranteed on a clear day. Visitor Centre open all year (9-30 am to 5-30 pm); O’Brien’s Tower open May-September (weather permitting).
The alternative sight
To get a feel of the 19th century rural life in Ireland, visit Bunratty Castle and Folk Park, less than 5 miles away from Shannon airport. Walk along a lovingly (if somewhat lifelessly) recreated village street, complete with a school, an old post-office, a cluster of shops and a Mac’s Irish pub. You can travel even further back in time by proceeding to the near-by 15th century Bunratty Castle and signing up for a twice-nightly “medieval banquet” (£32 per person, drinks included). The banquet starts with a “mead reception” and culminates with a sumptuous 4-course meal, served by waiters in period costumes. The procedure also includes one of the guests being thrown into the authentic Castle’s dungeon – as part of the evening’s entertainment, no doubt. Open all year round, admission £5, family £15
The walk
The Burren (meaning “rocky place” in Gaelic) in North Clare is a unique 100-square-mile plateau of naked grey limestone formed by a melting glacier over 10,000 years ago. Coloured in all imaginable shades of grey and blue, the Burren is home to numerous exotic plants growing in the crevices of the rock. Due to the limestone’s quality of absorbing heat, the temperature on the plateau is always higher than on the sea-level, and the grass on it grows all year round – the fact that couldn’t help attracting the very first settlers to Ireland. This is why there are more pre-Christian monuments and remains here than in the rest of the country. The Burren offers lots of exciting and clearly sign-posted walking routes of different complexity and duration. For detailed description of some of them, ask for “The Burren Way” free brochure at the Tourist Centre in Ennis (Arthur’s Row).
The shops
£7 will buy a set of attractive earrings with semi-precious stones designed by Finola O’Keeffe, a local artist
Clare Craft & Design, 20 Parnell Street, Ennis
£30 is the price of a traditional Irish fleece jacket
Blarney Woolen Mills, Bunratty
£100 is the cost of an exquisite Clannad Bowl – an exclusively Irish artefact celebrating the spirit of the country’s “clan” (family) and made of the famous Waterford crystal
The Belleek Shop, Abbey Street, Ennis
The guidebook
Lonely Planet’s Ireland (£11.99) features a detailed 70-page-long section on County Clare and the Shannon Region.
What’s on when
Glor Irish Music Centre in Ennis (00 353 65 6843103) will be officially opened on the 30th of November and will be hosting the best of Irish traditional music and theatre, including regular performances of “The Matchmaker” – a tragicomical adaptation of the works of John B.Keane starring Anna Manahan and Des Nealon. The Ceili Evenings, where you can learn some Irish dancing, are held on Wednesdays at Cois na Habhana (Galway Road, Ennis). And the annual sale at Blarney Woolen Mills shopping mall (Bunratty) starts on the 1st of January, 2002.