Lough Arrow Touring & Caravaning Park 

           Ballynarry, Lough Arrow, Co. Sligo.  Tel:  071 96 66018

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Lough Arrow Touring Park is an ideal base for visitors, where you have the best of both worlds, a quiet rural location surrounded by beautiful scenery with ancient sites dating back long before the pyramids, Abbey's and Monasteries from more recent times all within a short drive. 

Built between the Romanesque and Gothic periods, the Abbey exhibits features of both, the most notable being the row of rounded arches on one side of the nave which faces a row of pointed arches on the other side. In contrast to the Cistercian tradition of plain churches, the columns at the western end of the abbey are carved with elaborate figures and animals. The visitors centre is housed in the restored gatehouse. 

Founded in 1161 by the ruling MacDermott family, Boyle Abbey was a sister house to the first Cistercian monastery in Mellifont, Co. Louth. Finally consecrated in 1220, the abbey survived many years of attack during the feuds between the warring MacDermott and O'Conor clans. Used as a military garrison during the 17th and 18th centuries, the abbey continued to be subjected to raids, making its present well-preserved condition all the more remarkable. 

Sligo Town 20 mins. and Carrick on Shannon 15 mins. for shopping, pubs and disco's For the young at heart (a bus leaves at the Rockview Hotel on Sat. night for Carrick Nite Club for the younger of your group and drops them back to the site. 

Lakes & Coast

Massive Atlantic rollers crash in along the coast at Strandhill (20 mins.)  because there's simply nothing to stop them. America is the next point west.  Strandhill boasts a challenging 18-hole links set amongst the dunes, with Knockarea, the fabled mountain, overlooking the course. Queen Maeve, who ruled the province of Connacht in the 1st century A.D., is said to be buried in the mountaintop cairn. There is a sign posted trail to the top which offers wonderful views. Rosses Point 20 mins from site with its miles of sandy coast line, is also a Blue Flag Beach, it also host's a Golf Course.

 

The beach at Strandhill is claimed (by those who should know) as the best 

surfing beach in Europe

Inland water too, for fishing there is no better place to be, for coarse, lake, sea angling you are spoiled for choice, Lough Key, (5 mins),  Lough Arrow with the Bricklieve Mountains overlooking. Lough Gara guarded by the Curlew Mountains. To the north, a virtually uninhabited coast but with the tabletop of Benbulben as the back-cloth.  Mullaghmore Head is stunning, ditto Cullumore. Lough Gill is the location of that most famous Isle o Inishfree by W.B. Yeats. It's all there and much more, waiting to be discovered.

Sunset over Lough Arrow and the Bricklieve Mountains

 

The William Butler Yeats Connection

William Butler Yeats (1865-1939) was one of the great literary figures a century ago. Whose friends included Oscar Wilde and George Bernard Shaw. Yeats was born in Dublin, but his parents were from Sligo where he spent much of his youth. Thus did he write:

I will arise and go now, go to Innisfree, 
and a small cabin build there, 
of clay and wattle made,
Nine bean rows will I have there, 
A hive for the honey bee, 
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

He was buried locally at the church in Drumcliff at the foot of Benbulben (10 years after he died in France) and his connections with this area are celebrated at length. Visitors Welcome.
 
Contact:   Mary & Terry Wilson, Lough Arrow Touring Park

Ballynarry, Lough Arrow, Co. Sligo.

Tel:  ++353 (0)71 96 66018    Mobile:  086 2194005

Email:  latp@eircom.net

Last modified: October 04, 2007