Duckett’s Grove
We’ve passed by Duckett’s Grove several times on our travels but have either had no time to visit it or in fact it wasn’t open to the public. This time, however, we saw one of those brown signs pointing to the place and we decided to pay it a visit.
Firstly, it was a fantastic, hot day and I think we saw the big house at it’s best, albeit that it is almost a shell. The house was off limits as it was considered unstable, although large steel beams were visible so some work had been done to stop it falling down. But it was great to see this striking, unusual place up close. All those chimneys, the crenellations and that tower are unlike anything else we’ve seen.
The walled gardens beside the house were opened just last year, in September 2007, and they were looking very well indeed for such a short period of existence. We spoke to the gardener, a knowledgeable young man who told us some of the house’s interesting history. It had been gutted by a fire in the 1920s (some think maliciously by an evicted tenant) and had not been lived in since then. In the 1970s a Miss Brady bought the place and lived in a few rooms in an out-building near the stableyard until just a few years when she passed away.
There are plans to improve the gardens and maybe have a cafe and a craft shop as well, but according to the gardener those are many years away as there is simply no money. Ultimately the house may be restored, or at least made totally safe to move through, when the money to do so becomes available.
Well worth a visit if you’re in the area.
(This Google image looks like it’s several years old – the trees in the house are gone and the walled gardens to the SE have been developed).
Mount Wolseley Golf Club
Mount Wolseley isn’t our kind of place. It’s a massive hotel/spa/holiday home complex and when we’re on one of our tours it’s not what we’re into. When we arrived last night to went through to the very posh looking golf reception and spoke to Martin. He said that he didn’t see any problem with parking overnight (it’s a giant hotel car park after all) but that’s it wasn’t his call and we should ask at reception. So we did that and the guy said it’d be fine and suggested we park down one end of the car park where there is less likely to any traffic during the night. We had a drink in the stupidly busy bar/restaurant area and this is why we prefer nice, small clubhouses. The staff were clearly pushed, there were kids running around, loads of tables still needed clearing. It just wasn’t out scene, plus the Guinness was awful. We did have a nice chat with a family who came to sit at our table to order their dinner. They raved about the hotel (the mother had former hotel connections and got a good deal!) and said it was great for kids – loads for them to do.
It was a perfect morning. No wind, clear sky and getting warmer by the second. We had a tee off time of 8am with two others, who didn’t show.
South Meath Golf Club
Yesterday’s stormy winds continued through the night and this morning it was raining. Things didn’t look promising for a fine day’s golf but once again the blue skies and sunshine showed up right on cue as we arrived at the clubhouse. We signed in and a member who had just turned up, Seamus Cusack, said he’d play with us.
We knew this one wouldn’t be in the same league as the courses we’d played so far and truthfully, compared to those others, South Meath Golf Club isn’t much of course on the surface of it. It’s a young course, the greens aren’t great, has only 16 holes (the 1st doubles up as the 16th and the 15th is also the 18th – moving to 18 holes soon we’re told) and is a bit rough around the edges. But by a long shot this has been the most enjoyable course on this trip, thanks mainly to the great craic we had with Seamus. He was feeling a bit delicate, having been at a wedding yesterday, but that didn’t stop him playing well and keeping us entertained – which more than made up for the Damian debacle yesterday.
Castlewarden Golf Club
We’re not used to these late tee times, today’s was at 2:15pm, and with nothing much else on the cards we went to the club early (10am!) to see if there had been any cancellations. But the time sheet was packed and everyone seemed keen to play so we just hung around in the camper reading and whatnot until it was time to go.
While we were waiting the wind picked up. And then it picked up some more. It was a nice, sunny day up to that point. It was still warm and the sky was still blue but I don’t recall ever having played in such a persistently strong wind.
But anyway we arrived at the tee box to find that we were playing with a chap called Damian, playing off 7. He seemed like a nice person but boy was he hard work. Not only was there no craic out of him whatsoever and even less in the way of actually speaking. He made no effort to engage us in conversation. He didn’t wait for us or help us look for balls or say things like ‘great shot’ (though to be honest there wasn’t much in the way of great shots going on). Maybe he was having a bad day, maybe he didn’t like northerners, but whatever the case we may as well have been playing in a two ball for all the effort he made to play with us.
Milltown Golf Club
There’s a story that goes along with this one so bear with us!
We arrived at Milltown Golf Club last night and went inside to find that there seemed to be a big function on. Feeling a little under-dressed and not sure which room the bar was in we retreated to the changing rooms where we asked one of the gents if a club official was around. He showed is up to the modernly decorated bar with white leather seats and we explained our story to the only two men there (I forget their names, but they were nice blokes and seemed to have something to do with the club). They thought it’d be OK to park overnight but that James was the man to talk to to get the official nod.
At this stage we were beginning to think ‘oh here we go again with the snobby Dublin clubs’!
Balcarrick Golf Club
Balcarrick is an 18 hole course just north of Dublin between Donabate and Malahide – there are three or four other courses in the area. We heard from several people that Corballis, just up the road, is a great course so we’ll definitely try to pick that one up at some point.
This is the first of 5 courses we’re playing on this trip. We had a tee off time of 1:26pm and we set off from home early to get through Dublin in good time, arriving at the course in bright sunshine. The clouds weren’t far behind and they hung around, but only giving us a few minutes of rain at the start.
Something’s gone wrong!
I upgraded to the site to Wordpress 2.5 recently and it seems that the theme I was using is not yet compatible with this latest version, so we’re back to this temporary look until I can either get things working or find another new style. Everything still works, it just doesn’t look as nice.
Normal service will resume as soon as possible.
Update: Fixed things sooner than I expected!
Swinford (225)
When we arrived at Swinford last night and walked into the clubhouse we were greeted by Julie, Mary and Catherine (the lady Captain) who were hard at work sort out their 2008 calendar. What a fine trio of giggly ladies! We told them our usual yarn and in between swapping stories there was much laughter. They gave us the OK the park in the car park (we kept Catherine’s parking space warm for her under her orders) and since their bar was closed they recommended Mellett’s in the village, a mere hen’s run away. It was a chilly walk, but well worth it as the Guinness was amongst the nicest we have tasted in ages.
Swinford is 9 hole course in Co. Mayo. the weather wasn’t very overcast with a little bit of rain, but yesterday’s wind had died and we set off hoping the day would improve, which it more or less did by the time we on our way round for the second time.
Redcastle Golf Club (223)
We played this course in August 2007 but for whatever reason (most likely laziness) I didn’t get around to doing a post about.
I’ll sort that out in the next few days and update this entry.
Glenlo Abbey (224)
Glenlo Abbey is a 9 hole course on the Clifden Road just out of Galway and is part of a hotel complex. The approach looked quite promising – and fine looking church (presumably the abbey) connected to an old house leading down past a couple of Pullman coaches converted into a restaurant to the clubhouse – a slightly downmarket looking log cabin next to its grander siblings.
We introduced ourselves to the two chaps manning the shop. They were decent enough but didn’t seem to be in the mood for chat, or at least our brand of it, so after paying our green fees (they’re part of Open Fairways so it was just €20 total) we made lunch and then headed to the first tee.
