Introduction to Cong, MO

CONG lies on the narrow spit of land that divides Lough Mask from Lough Corrib at the point where the dramatically mountainous country of Connemara to the west gives way to the flat and fertile farmland that makes up the east of County Mayo. A picture-book pretty village that caters for plenty of tourists, it's also the site of the ruined Cong Abbey, which was founded in around 1135 for the Augustinians by Turlough O'Connor, King of Ireland (though it's probably built on a seventh-century monastic site). The abbey's fine sculpture-work suggests links with western France, though the cloisters look just a little bit too good to be true: they were partially rebuilt in 1860. At its height, Cong Abbey had a population of some three thousand, and the practicalities of feeding such multitudes can be glimpsed in the remains of the refectory and kitchen by the river, where a fishing house over the water contains a fishing hole in the floor; a line ran to a bell in the refectory to let cook know when fish had been caught. The Cross of Cong, a twelfth-century ornamented Celtic cross originally made in County Roscommon for the abbey, gives an indication of the wealth and status of the foundation – it's now on show at the National Museum in Dublin. From the abbey there's a pleasant wander through woods down to the river and the lough, although this runs through the grounds of the local big house, Ashford Castle, now a luxury hotel, which charges for admission to its land in summer (€5).

It's also worth taking a look at the town's canal. In the 1840s attempts were made, as a Famine relief project, to dig a canal between Lough Corrib and Lough Mask. The river that links the two runs underground through porous limestone for most of its length, though you can get to it at various points, including the Pigeon Hole, a mile or so north of Cong. This might have been an indication of what would happen to the canal: the porosity of the rock meant that the water just drained away, and Cong is left with a dry canal, complete with locks.

The town is obsessed with The Quiet Man, a film that much of the rest of the world may have forgotten but which, shot here in 1951 and starring John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara, is well remembered here; it's a highly romanticized expression of the emigrants' notion of Ireland and Irishness. If you're happy to get into the kitschness of it all, head for the Quiet Man Cottage Museum (daily 10am–5pm; €3.75) just around the corner from the abbey and the tourist office, a painstaking replica of the cottage built for the making of the film; the only "real" thing in it is a horse's harness used in the film.

Mostly on the east side of Cong, around the R334 towards Neale, is clustered a sequence of monuments, both ancient and not-so-ancient. They range from a series of stone circles, near Cong, to another of the mysterious monuments that abound in Ireland, a massive stone-stepped pyramid in Neale, with an almost indecipherable inscription, including the name George Browne and some worn Roman numerals, dating it somewhere in the eighteenth century. The Brownes are the family who occupy Westport House, but the reason for the pyramid remains obscure.

Information by Rough Guides

Back to Cong, MO Overview