, which takes its name from a monastic site, saw its fair share of plundering over the course of its tortured history, since its original abbey was first constructed in AD 576.
Despite both working in Dublin – Ryan as a writer and the director of creative writing at the school of English at and Walsh as a journalist, author and literary editor of The Irish Times from 1999 until her death in 2011 – the pair embarked on an adventure to make this part of the country their home. “Long before we’d even bought a house in Dublin, we’d decided we wanted a place in the country,” says Ryan. “So we bought here in 1990 when we’d two small children and a clapped-out car.
A bit like the adjacent abbey serving as a centre for learning and agriculture, this schoolhouse was where the couple penned five books, edited a “mountain” of them, while son Matt Ryan, co-founder along with Paddy McKillen jnr of Press Up hospitality group, “apprenticed himself” with “any agricultural contractor who would have him on board”.
Rosa Gordon Snell grows to the rear of the house. It serves as a reminder that the late author Maeve Binchy – who had commissioned the rose for, Gordon Snell – were regular visitors here. Binchy had also been Walsh’s teacher in school as well as being a colleague and editor in later life. European election counts: How to watch the counting and vote transfers for two remaining constituencies