The Thistlethatch Cottage

May 29, 2022

The Thistlethatch Cottage was built in 1778 in the Mourne Mountains and, at 1000’, is the highest residence in County Down. The view, a spectacular view, is to the north, toward the Tellymore Forest and Newcastle on the coast. The road is called Fofanny (FO-fu-nee) and it means Land of the Thistles in Irish.

A copy of the 1927 Indenture by which the property was sold from Patrick Hugh Grant, who emigrated to 575 Van Duxen Street, in Stapleton Heights, Staten Island, New York, to his nephew Michael Joseph Grant of Fofannyreagh in County Down, sits on the kitchen table.

A gate spans the entrance and the owner Andy, who worked for two years to restore the house after the roof collapsed and it fell into dilapidation, asks that we mind that the gate be kept closed as the sheep in the area will wander in and are difficult to persuade to leave. This fact is attested to by the sheep wool than hangs from the bottom of the wire fence across the road.

A rock wall borders the property. Wild yellow and white buttercups dot the lawn. There is a swing suspended beneath a tall tree. Two Adirondack chairs sit in the lawn overlooking the valley.

The doorways are 5’8” tall, built at a time when the inhabitants were Cathy size. For Rob, the house is a bit of an obstacle course, ducking beneath short doorways while stepping down invisible steps on the gray slate floors. I take a header, waking Cathy in the middle of the night, on the very step Cathy reminded me to watch before we fell asleep.

In the living room sits a rocking chair in front of a fire. On the mantle are hand tools from a bygone time. A note cautions you to remove the “sheep wooly” from the chimney before building a fire. It is kept there to prevent a draft.

In the kitchen is an old cast iron woodburning stove at which I restore my dignity and retrieve “hero status” after my nose dive from the night before when Cathy discovers I have old age skills (I can I build a mean fire and make a mean cup of coffee with an old French press ceramic pot) as well as new age skills (I can position my smart phone in my handy dandy mini-tripod and activate the shutter for a selfie from a distance with the handy dandy shutter release on my iWatch).

I brew Cathy her coffee and me my tea while she cooks the eggs and bacon on the stove. We walk to the yard to watch the valley below, Cathy bundled up in the robe we found folded at the foot of our bed.

And at the end of the day, after we’ve found Rooneys and McKibbons and sat at the foot of the Foley Bridge in the Talleymore Forest (built in 1778, the exact same year as the Thistlethatch cottage . . . probably with the help of the stone mason who lived there),