Wicklow wonders

WICKLOW is very lucky. It has gardens, mountains, woods, great attractions and we’re here in the middle of it all.”

The speaker was a Galway man who has made his home in the county dubbed The Garden of Ireland and after a varied career now has a dual position with Avoca Handweavers.

Allan O’Neill from Ardrahan had just given us an enthralling, nay awe-inspiring, tour of the oldest weaving mill in Ireland.

The whitewashed buildings with their slated roofs and traditional red woodwork stood in contrast to the greenery that clothed the hills rising on either side.

Above those trees, if you were lucky, you could see magnificent red kites circling in the eternal quest for prey.

And we were lucky. A few hundred metres from the mill, in the village of Avoca, the local butcher sometimes leaves scraps of meat on his flat roof.

Isaac Lett takes pleasure in seeing the birds swoop and snatch, and we were just in time to meet photographer Gavan Doyle who showed us some of the stunning pictures he has captured.

Master Victualler Isaac is a man who likes a chat, and within a few minutes we had ranged from a welcome for the successful reintroduction of these native birds of prey to tales of football and hurling rivalries among the south-eastern counties.

Wicklow people are friendly. Wherever we went, from the streets of Arklow to the weaving shed in Avoca, there was a warm hello .....

Read the story in full in this week’s edition of The Tuam Herald, on sale in shops or buy the digital edition here