At home and away in the best of the west

TALK of putting down roots: Denise and Padraig Cusack got so well burrowed down at Aughadown, West Cork, that despite being two miles inland and uphill of the sea from Kilcoe and Roaring Water Bay, they had to drill down 490 feet for their well supply.

The Cusacks’ smartly reworked homestead is in a sublime setting on three acres, set just enough inland to inspire thoughts about landscape in the widest sense. There’s a broad sweep of west Cork land, rock, dell-like pockets of green and blazes of gorse, and an azure blue swathe of sea beyond. The nearest house is half a mile away, so when you are home, you’re alone.

When Padraig (son of actor, writer and producer Cyril Cusack) and Denise first visited the area in 2001, this house at the Land of Lyre was in altogether rougher shape, with cattle and pig sheds in a raw state, and living quarters that were little more than were basic. It was full of plastic bags of possessions, hanging from ceiling rafters, like some early harbinger of the plastic bag levy.