Writers' thoughts on Oughterard

By Paul Gibbons

Maria Edgeworth
William Makepeace Thakeray

Maria Egdeworth, 1834

“Outerard as well as we could see it, was a pretty mountain-scattered village with a pond and trees, and a sort of terrace road, with houses and gardens on one side, and a lower road with pond and houses on the other. There is a spa at Outerard to which the bettermost sort of people come in the season; but this was not the season, and the place had that kind of desolute look, mixed with pretensions too, which a watering-place out of season always has.”

William Makepeace Thackeray, 1842

“A more beautiful village can scarcely be seen than this. It stands upon Lough Corrib, the banks of which are here, for once at least, picturesque and romantic: and a pretty river, the Feogh, comes rushing over racks and by woods until it passes the town and meets the lake. Some pretty buildings in the village stand on each bank of this stream, a Roman Catholic chapel with a curate’s neat lodge; a little church on one side of it, a fine courthouse of grey stone on the other. And here it is that we get into the famous district of Connemara, so celebrated in Irish stories, so mysterious to the London tourist.”

This page was added on 05/07/2012.

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