Places to see in Galway area

Bunratty Castle

Bunratty Castle & Folk Park
1 hour Drive from The Coach House Hotel

Bunratty Castle is one of the finest surviving examples of an Irish tower house. Although it is hard to believe that the castle has had a bloody and violent history. Its strategic position on the river Shannon made it the centre of many a battle, and it has it has been destroyed and re-built on at least eight occasions.

The Folk Park adjoins the castle and aims to show what everyday life was like in rural Ireland about 100 years ago. It contains reconstructed farmhouses, cottages and shops, and care has been taken to make them as authentic as possible, particularly with regard to furnishings.

The Park is a living museum : animals are tended, bread is baked, milk is churned, walls are whitewashed and roofs are thatched. You may visit an Irish farmhouse, watch the blacksmith fit a horseshoe, attend a weaving demonstration, and bake and eat scones at the local tea house. The village also reflects the fundamental changes that led to increased mobility.

Coole Park

Coole Park
½ Hour Drive from The Coach House Hotel

Coole Park was once the home of Lady Augusta Gregory, dramatist, folklorist and co-founder of the Abbey Theatre with Edward Martyn of Tullira Castle and Nobel prize-winning poet William Butler Yeats. Coole Park, in the early 20th century, was the centre of the Irish Literary Revival. Yeats, George Bernard Shaw, John Millington Synge and Sean O' Casey all came to experience its magic. They and many others carved their initials on the Autograph Tree, an old beech still standing today. Although the house no longer stands, one can still appreciate the surroundings that originally drew so many here.

There are two trails to follow. "The Family Trail" is an easy 1.75 km walk, taking you past the deer pen, the site of the house and into the walled garden to see the Autograph Tree.

The   4.5 km "Seven Woods Trail" connects the different woods made famous in poetry by W.B. Yeats. Depending on the season, you might   see bluebells and violets, jays and treecreepers, red squirrels and stoats, butterflies and dragonflies, or swans and other wetland birds.

    "The trees are in their autumn beauty,
     The woodland paths are dry,
     Under the October twilight the water
     mirrors a still sky;"

W.B. Yeats "Wild Swans at Coole"