West Coast of Ireland, July 2015: Ballinderreen

As we'd enjoyed our short break in Dublin so much last year, hubby and I decided to have a holiday on the West Coast of Ireland this Summer. We booked ourselves into Bertie's Cottage in Ballindereen, which was an attractive, quaint thatched cottage about 200 years old, possibly more, but recently refurbished and modernised by the present owner, Michael.

We arrived at Shannon airport on Saturday evening and were pleased to find that the Tesco's in Ennis stayed open late, so we bought fish pies for dinner and some other things we thought we might need and drove along the N18 and beyond it in our hire car until we came to Ballindereen. We drove the last stretch in heavy rain.

We'd phoned the owner, Michael, to let him know we were on our way and he was waiting for us when we arrived. The cottage had been beautifully renovated. There was a modern kitchen with a cooker, fridge and a kettle as well as a toaster and some kind of mini oven. So we had a cup of tea and cooked our pies and peas. We were pleased to find some fresh scones in the cake tin afterwards. Michael had also provided milk and teabags.

There was a pleasant dining/living area

Ballinderreen is a quiet, rural village situated on the N67 between Kinvarra and Kilcolgan. It has as a garage with a small shop and a pub.

There was a farm behind us, which we could see out of the kitchen window, but we didn't hear or see much activity there, so it certainly didn't disturb our peace.

In the other direction it was mostly fields. The local church is the modern St Colmans church, although there is the ruin of a much older church nearby.