Rediscovering Hidden Ireland

EVEN driving down this country’s rural roads, much of Ireland is hidden, more of it is simply overlooked, abandoned, or ignored. And, some of it is making its way back – as can be seen in a day in the wandering company of someone like the multi-faceted George Gossip.

He’s one of the pro-active personalities behind the Hidden Ireland collection of family-owned Irish period homes open to paying guests.

Gossip, along with his Galway-born wife Susie, saved one abandoned house from dereliction: Ballinderry Park near Ballinasloe may be known to TV viewers for its mid-2000s painstaking renovation, featured on Duncan Stewart’s About the House. The rescue and reinstatement of this 1700s, ‘small’ Georgian farmhouse was overseen by architectural historian and conservationist Jeremy Williams.