A GRANT of €6,000 from the cash-starved Heritage Council has resulted in the restoration of a 300-year-old thatched cottage near Dungarvan, Co Waterford – and paying guests can now enjoy staying in this authentic Irish rural farmhouse.
“It is romantic,” says Margaret Flanagan, proprietor of Coole Country Cottages. “It reminds you of what it might have been like to have lived in this cottage hundreds of years ago, with rough, thick walls and thatch pouring over its doors and windows.”
Last year, she admits, Nook Cottage was “not in good shape”. The thatch was “well past its sell-by date, with a variety of plants growing on the roof”. As a result, the interior was suffering and the building was “in a sad state”, she says.
Flanagan applied to the Heritage Council and was delighted to get a grant. A local thatcher was employed and reed for the re-thatching was harvested from the nearby River Bride; it was a condition of the grant that local reed had to be used.
“Nook Cottage is a direct living with the past,” she says. “It is worth protecting our heritage for the contribution it makes to our future, even though this can sometimes be a challenge. The contribution that heritage makes cannot be underestimated.”
Flanagan runs a cluster of three heritage cottages as holiday homes and will be holding two “open days” on August 20th and 21st, when thatcher George McGrath will be on hand to talk about the process. There will also be a “before and after” photographic exhibition.
“Heritage tourism is so important to the national economy, yet this is not fully supported in this country,” says Flanagan. “Our castles and towers and thatched cottages are all part of our cultural heritage. It is so important that we maintain and enjoy them.”
