|
Featured on Home&Garden's Fine Living Television. Local legends tell of Mermaids living in the small bay between the island, Illaundrane, and the Mermaid Isle cottage, nestled in a grove of trees on the shore halfway between Sneem and Caherdaniel, a mile off the famous Ring of Kerry. A pod of seals still live at the end of the 26-acre island, which completes the farm. And a pair of dolphins commonly guard its countless tidepools. It's still not unusual to be greeted in the morning by a playful otter, scampering down to the sea, past the California Hot-tub perched right on the ridge. Originally the ancient fisherman's stone cottage had three bedrooms, but the present museum designer/owner removed the walls dividing them to provide a generous, single bedroom, with a sitting area and open, turf-burning fireplace. Sun rays and moon beams reflecting on the bay will clothe your bed, where you'll be lulled by songs of the wind and waves.
It's obvious that those who first built the cottage, loved the sea. The recently added conservatory/observatory allows you spend your days and nights in nature surrounded by sunlit clouds, the moon and the stars, progressive seasonal explosions of brilliantly colored wildflowers and all the players on this stage of life: patient herons, silent swans, screeching oyster-catchers, bobbing mergansers, probing curlews, hovering falcons, a variety of soaring gulls, sky-diving gannets, snorkeling cormorants, and curious pup seals. After a swim in the calm clear Gulf Stream warmed waters of Mermaid Isle, your evenings can be spent in the hot-tub contemplating dramatic shooting stars or the lights of Jupiter, Saturn, and Venus, reflecting on the glass-like private cove's surface below the most pollution-free skies on this planet.
Modern gourmet kitchen appliances have been tastefully disguised by historic leaded church doors and panels, or antique copper and great slabs of cedar. The spiraling stairway was carved by a local sculptor from the same stump. You can sit at the time-honored pitch-pine kitchen table preparing your meals before the roaring turf fire in a glass faced iron stove set into the original hearth, complemented with its centuries-old crane and cauldrons. The spacious skylit bathroom, also features leaded windows and French doors to the wildflowers. Like the kitchen all modern appliances and a hand-thrown sink by a Kerry artist have been integrated into historic country furnishings.
Apart from the owner's barn down the coast, the nearest neighbor is over a mile away, allowing unlimited explorations of endless tidepools and sea vistas, without returning to the Ring of Kerry. But that famous scenic road will take you to the local quaint, gaily painted towns of Sneem, Caherdaniel, and Kenmare, consistent national Tidy Towns competition winners, and home to world-class restaurants, pubs, golf courses, and Blue Flag beaches where you can rent horses and go galloping along the surf, rent dive or water-sports gear or board commercial fishing boats. Other boats will take you to the seventh century monastery atop Skellig Michael, eight miles off the coast. Prehistoric Celtic monuments dot the landscape and the lakes, forests, and waterfalls of Killarney are just across the mountains.
Mermaid Isle is a private retreat for artists, writers, naturalists, lovers, a place to spark the imagination, reopen your senses and rekindle your love of life. It truly is Tir Na Nog, the Land of the Forever Young, a place where time stops. |
