Search Results for 'Cashel Bay'

Waiting outside the office of the Irish Times’ managing director, one might expect a snotty Moneypenny to usher you into a dark, wood-panelled study where a stern Judi Dench as M, in James Bond, will be enthroned at a leathered desk, waiting to receive, with a thousand-yard death stare.

I have often wondered how the unusual name of Zetland found its way to the head of Cashel Bay in the heart of Connemara. It is, of course, the name of a well known hotel today. The hotel was founded in the closing years of the 19th century, by the son of a mountain farmer, JJ O'Loughlin, who had a canny instinct for business. The hotel was originally called The Zetland Arms, and before that The Viceroy's Rest. All these names allude to the hotel's distinguished patron Lawrence Dundas, Viceroy or Lord Lieutenant of Ireland from 1889 to 1902, in which year he became the Marquis of Zetland.

In what must be the ultimate irony in the compelling story of Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath, and their brief, but significant visit to Connemara in September 1962, it was Hughes who returned to find solace and peace there. Sylvia had planned to return that autumn, instead she found, what she thought was a refuge in the former home of WB Yeats in London, and despite the onset of severe depression, remained there to write her best poems. It would probably have saved her life if she had taken up the rented cottage she had paid a deposit for, between Cleggan and Moyard. Instead in London she battled against a bitter cold winter, ‘flu, frozen pipes, and minding her two small children while writing furiously most of the night.

Week II

Dear Aurelia, It has not been possible for me to write this letter before now...