Mitchells Cottage is owned and run by Paul and Karen Leamy. We bought the cottage with its land and built our own house next to the cottage. The original cottage was cold, damp and leaked a lot. So, in late 2007, the cottage was demolished and rebuilt with a large extension, completed in September 2008. The original stone has been meticulously re-built into the cottage exterior which retains its historical significance and enhances its aesthetical appeal.
The cottage has been built to exceed modern building standards while still retaining it’s original character. The cottage has been re-designed with family rental in mind. There are two master bedrooms with king size beds and generous en-suites and two twin rooms. This may suite two couples with children, thus halving the rental cost.
Over the last number of years we are fortunate to have a lot of repeat business with many families coming back year after year.
The history of the cottage has linkage to Mitchell Henry. In the late 1800’s Mitchell Henry came to the west of Ireland and started work on the world renowned Kylemore Abbey. This brought much needed employment to the area just after the famine. Mitchell Henry was quite an innovator. In Ballinakill bay just outside Letterfrack, he set up oyster beds. Local folklore has it that a boathouse was built on lambs island, (a very small green patch in the middle of the bay) with stone quarried from ‘Tom Toby’s Hill’ across the bay in Dawros. By the early 1900’s the oyster beds were dormant and in 1922 the boat house was dismantled, stone by stone, and brought ashore by Curragh (small hand built native boat). From the shore the stone was transported by ass and cart and Mitchells Cottage was built directly onto the clay.
