After Cromwell’s conquest of Ireland, according to our host, those Irish Catholics not executed for taking part in the 1641 rebellion were exiled to Connacht in the west. Standing by the Sky Road looking out over the Atlantic earlier this year, the rolling countryside behind us and Connemara mares and foals grazing at our feet, I felt a great pull to the area; a longing for a self-imposed exile of my own.
As we drove home and the terrain changed from the desolate “savage beauty” described by Oscar Wilde to verdant farmland, each stone-walled field the perfect size for a pony paddock, my son declared that he’d like to live there. By the time we got back to his godfather’s house and a few bars of signal, I was already online looking for houses.
