Location:Ireland
Bedrooms:4 Bathrooms:5 Property Type:Vacation Home Sleeps:9
Amenities:Child Friendly, Linens, TowelsActivities:Restaurants
Description:Panacea is a secluded family cottage on Achill Island with sea views, tastefully renovated into a Country Estate. This was our familye28099s cottage in a past generation, on the rugged, rural, scenic west coast of Ireland. We recently made it our family holiday home which we designed, furnished, and decorated for an elegant and cozy feel, yet retaining the old-world charm and feel of the original cottage. Panacea is full of high-end furniture, antiques, period accessories, quality kitchen ware, towels, and linens. Our home is available for weekly rental throughout the entire summer season, and any other time of the year we are not in Achill. Come be our guests. n nSome Background n nIn 2004, we bought the family cottage which is located in a small, rural village called The Valley, on Achill Island. Mary 's mother grew up in The Valley, and this cottage, her favorite cottage in The Valley, was owned and built by her cousin. Achill Island is the largest island off the coast of Ireland, connected to the mainland by a short bridge. It is in the West of Ireland (in County Mayo) which is known for its rugged beauty and undeveloped coastlines. Achill Island is still very undeveloped, and because of its remoteness and serene beauty, it has been a popular place for writers, poets, and painters to spend their creative sabbaticals. More recently, it has also started to become a popular place for Dubliners and other Europeans to holiday. Although a number of Holiday Cottages have been built in the last few years, the island is still very rural. One still must drive slowly around the narrow, windy roads, and frequently wait for cows or sheep meandering in your path. n nWe started a major renovation project on the cottage in late 2005, turning it into a four-bedroom, five-bathroom country estate which we named Panacea (meaning a cure for everything). The project was finally finished in early 2007. When we or family members are not there on holiday, we are making Panacea available for vacation rental. n nAchill Island is about 12 miles by 14 miles and has about 3000 people living year-round in its 22 small villages. You can count on at least one pub in every village. (Our local, as they say in Ireland, is just on the other side of the lake behind Panacea, in an historic estate of English nobility now called The Valley House.) In the holiday season, the population grows to about 12,000. The tourism supports several good restaurants, but with grocery stores nearby and a complete kitchen in Panacea, guests can choose to stay huddled in the cottage in front of a cozy turf fire -- now that 's the real Irish way. n nA Bit of Personal History Behind This Project n nThe idea of Panacea as a name for a cottage comes from Gordon 's grandmother 's summer cottage in Chautauqua, Illinois. This name always seemed so fitting for a peaceful get-away cottage in a village like Chautauqua. Although Achill Island is so different from Chautauqua in many ways, in so many other ways they are alike. So taking the name of Panacea seemed as fitting for the quaintness, the smallness, and the friendliness of the inhabitants of Achill Island today, as it was for Chautauqua many years ago. And by taking this name for our new Chautauqua in Ireland, we have combined the heritage from both sides of our families. n nBut of course we had to have the Irish (Gaelic) word for Panacea to do full justice to the Irish side -- and we were excited to find out that there actually is a Gaelic word for Panacea. So ... the Gaelic name for our cottage is Uile-c3adoc (pronounced illa eek), which literally translates to cure-all. You will find both names on the distinctive bronze plaque that graces the entrance to our cottage. n nMary 's mother, Bridget, always wanted to return to Achill Island, but she never did. She had such a hard time leaving it the first time back in 1947, she was afraid that if she ever went back, she would not be able to bring herself to leave it a second time. She always said, I don 't want to go back because I don 't want to leave my seven kids without a mother. n nBridget died a few months before we visited Achill Island for the first time in 2002. We always thought how pleased she would have been had she known we even went back. But when we fell in love with the place, and returned two years later to buy her favorite cottage in The Valley, we couldn 't begin to imagine the elation she would have felt if she were still with us. So there was a bit of sadness throughout the project. At the very outset, we decided to build Uile-c3adoc (Panacea) in honor of Bridget Grealis Scheumbauer.
