The October sun was burning off the early morning cold as we slipped away from the jetty and towards the bridge under which flows the Shannon at Portumna. As the big, broad girders swung open, before us lay Lough Derg, steely grey water turning blue as the Indian summer sun rose through a crystal clear sky.
We glided down the channel and out onto the lake and already thought: “Where else would you rather be?”
Without being aware of it, all of us on the boat were playing to stereotype. The men – me and Geoff and Cliff – were topside, pouring over a navigation chart and fiddling with the throttle to get the speed just right. The women – Moira, Bernie and Cate – were downstairs, unpacking the considerable quantities of cheese and salami, bread and wine we had all brought.
Before we set off, Timmy Walsh, the main man at Emerald Star's Portumna marina, talked us through the dos and don'ts of the river and lake: where to go, what to avoid; which pretty villages not to miss; where the nice pubs and restaurants were.
“Don’t go there,” he’d say, pointing at the pale blue areas at the sides of the river and shallower places in the lake, the parts usually closest to the shore. “You’ll get stuck there for sure and we’ll have to come and pull you off.”
And that would cost €100 a shot.
Geoff took command of our boat, a sleek floating palace named Elegance. It slept six in three double rooms, each with a shower-cum-toilet; a squeeze for sure but you get used to it. Geoff moved cautiously, obeying the rules: green buoys to the left heading south downstream, red to the right.
Soon Terryglass hoved into view. The marina and pier, opened in 1992, was as well equipped and kept as you’d expect for a place that twice was Tidy Towns best village (1983 and 1997) and overall national winner in 2000.
As we disembarked, families of mallards welcomed us with their rasping cackle. The village is 500 metres up a narrow lane, its trees, verges and hedgerows manicured to within an inch of perfection.
The old Protestant church was turned into a home by a potter some 30 years ago. Today, Dave and Annette Corboy run Revived and Retro, a shop specialising in upcycled furniture and bric-a-brac. The place has an endearingly daft air, approached through a garden sprinkled with statues ranging from Buddhas to meerkats.
Dave is a carpenter and one of his really clever pieces is the back of an old wooden kitchen chair cut in such a way that, turned upside down and mounted on a wall, it is reborn as a small shelf and towel rail.
“That’s what we like to do,” he says. “Find new uses for old things.”
The old things include a wooden bedhead and foot that Dave has refashioned into a lovely, Annie Sloan painted, settle.
The next door graveyard, a beautifully kept, well-trimmed rolling lawn with scattered headstones, many dating from the mid-18th century, separates Revived and Retro from the Derg Inn, a shop, restaurant and Tipperary’s pub of the year this year and last.
The menu looked good: starters of chowder, steamed mussels in garlic and white wine, sauteed crab claws in garlic butter for €9-€11; main courses included pan seared seabass with garlic and dill cream sauce, baked cod with pak choi, saddle of rabbit stuffed with black pudding and langoustine put lentil, and a surf and turf of fillet steak and scallops for €21- €26.
The pub is pushing craft beers – Bo Bristle from Offaly, Yule Ol from the White Gypsy Brewery in Templemore, and Howling Gale by the Eight Degrees Brewery in Mitchelstown. We sat out in the sunshine and rested our eyes on a pretty village, its toy-town twin arch bridge, and friendly chatty people. We felt completely relaxed.
After an on-board lunch of bread and cheese and duck-watching, we ambled across the lake to spend the evening and night in Garrykennedy, the village that sounds like a person. We entering the marina, passing two fishermen photographing their proud catch of the day – a 12lb pike – which they lowered gently back into the water and freedom.
At Larkins, a lovely whitewashed thatched cottage pub, Majella and Ciaran were celebrating their marriage with 70 family and friends but there was still plenty of room for everyone else, boaters and locals, who thronged the place as the night wore on, creating a warm friendly buzz.
Saturday’s sun rose over still water that had a glistening, oily calm about it. A cormorant stood at the end of a breakwater, silhouetted against the light; a heron glided onto some rocks by the shore and stood stony still, waiting to pounce; over the side of the boat you could see small fish darting around plants in the crystal water.
There were a surprising number of seemingly derelict yachts and cabin cruisers in the village’s inner marina, all bunched up together on one side, tarpaulins torn, windows damaged, open to the elements and covered with a slimy green mildew-like growth suggesting abandonment. An odd mess in such an otherwise lovely place.
Out onto the lake again, we headed southwest towards Mount Shannon. The rolling fields and woods of Tipperary on one side of the lake, those of Clare and Galway on the other, looked lush and unspoilt. “You’d expect to see more really beautiful homes at the water’s edge,” remarked Moira.
And you would but the landscape, seen from the middle of the lake, looks sparsely populated and the scenery very natural. It’s the sort of scenery that must have the English, Dutch, French and Germans slack-jawed in awe – it certainly did us.
Over in Mount Shannon – another well kept marina and adjoining parkland as befits another former Tidy Towns winner – Pauline and Helen were getting ready for what they hoped would be another busy weekend. They run a craft market and gallery in Callura Pottery, a small shop in a building covered by Virginia creeper, its autumn leaves a blaze of rich red and ochre.
Helen is from Lancashire, “but I’ve been here since February,” she says with a little air of triumph. A Chelsea Flower Show silver medallist, she had been a residential warden at Myerscough College when a fellow student, Denis from Mount Shannon, asked her to do the flowers at his marriage in Clare village in August 2013. “I came here and it was like coming home,” she says. “I’d never been here before but I thought ‘This is just lovely!’ and people said, ‘well, why don’t you stay?’ So I did.”
Down the road outside the Snug Cafe, there are stalls selling fresh, home-made bread, fruit and vegetables, jams and a walnut pesto that melts in the mouth, olives, and wicked chocolate biscuits. We staggered back to the boat, weighed down by pots of apple and quince jelly, olive bread, and mayflower cordial, had some more bread and cheese and thick-cut ham for lunch before heading on down to Killaloe.
We passed Bushy Island. We didn’t see the nesting eagles of which the locals are proud but we did have that peaceful, easy feeling navigating the narrow passage between the Lushag Rocks and Scilly Island. Timmy told us that somewhere off Sloe Island we should stop, turn off the engine and drift, listening to the silence. We did, sighing, and became even more mellow.
By the time we got the Killaloe and wandered about, pausing to chat with Laura Kilkenny, the power behind the award-winning Wooden Spoon cafe and cookery school, and her pal, artist Amanda Grace, we were so laid back we almost fell over. Laura specialises in healthy foods, sourced locally and her style has earned her praise from Georgina Campbell.
We crossed the bridge to Molly’s Bar to watch Laura’s namesake hurlers dash the hopes of Tipperary. Oddly enough, they weren’t very mellow at the end of 70 minutes, but outside the Shannon flowed gracefully on. All was calm.
