I prefer Mullingar for shopping and restaurants, where there is a large cineplex as well. The closest town is Oldcastle, which is 10 minutes' drive from the house.īigger towns are Mullingar, Cavan and Navan, all of which are around 40 minutes' drive away. My most recent novel, 'The Adulteress', is partly set in Cavan during 1941 and I was able to research it by talking to locals who had lived in the area during the Emergency.Īlthough Dromone is in Meath, it is very close to the border with Cavan and the landscape resembles Cavan and north-west Ireland more than south Meath. There is a small wood circumferencing the tiny Loughcrew just two minutes from the house, which I am missing already, and a short drive away are the Mullaghmeen Woods.įive minutes' drive away is Loughcrew House and Gardens where they have an annual opera, and a couple of minutes further on are the megalithic burial mounds of Loughcrew, older than those of Newgrange and completely unspoilt.Īll of my novels, apart from one, are partly or wholly set in this locality and I found the bogs, woods, lakes and drumlins a constant inspiration for my writing. One of the things I loved about living in Dromone was the easy access to beautiful places to walk and be on your own, when I would plan new books and think about characters.
![house inspiration house inspiration](https://maricamckeel.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/luciano-giubbilei3-652x1024.jpg)
The school is also within walking distance and often my son and I would simply cycle to school down little back lanes, taking just 15 minutes to get to school. There is also a tiny front garden, facing onto the road.Īnother aspect to the house in Dromone is that it is situated in a village so there is a shop and a pub within walking distance, and a sense of community, with good neighbours nearby, while at the same time, I have the peace of living in the countryside. And at the end of the garden my son has a tree-house - strictly off limits to adults. I now have apple, plum and pear trees all bearing fruit this year. Over the past few years I have done some work with the garden. The thick stone walls ensure that the house holds in the heat. The wood-burning stove ensured that we were cosy the whole of our first winter but a year or so later I had oil-fired central heating installed as well for convenience.Īs a writer, I spend lots of time at a desk, trying to write, so it is important not to get cold. Having moved from a damp old farmhouse nearby, my priority was that the house in Dromone was warm. Completely renovated, it has wooden floors and a stone wall feature in the sitting room with a wood-burning stove.Īdded onto this part of the house, but faced with stone so that it is in keeping with the original building, is a modern two-storey extension, comprising of a spacious kitchen with French doors leading to a patio, a study looking out onto a large back garden - the perfect place to write in peace and seclusion - a bathroom and a large open-plan bedroom upstairs with a skylight and varnished wooden floors.įrom the outside, the house looks quaint and traditional yet the interior is very spacious, with plenty of room for a family. This part of the house dates back to the early 19th century and is a simple two up, one down. Half of the house is the old stone cottage which would have been originally inhabited by workers on the Naper Loughcrew House estate. What appealed to me most about my house in Dromone was that it was a fusion of old and new.
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![house inspiration house inspiration](https://bluprint.onemega.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/myhome-modern-minimalist.jpg)
Over the following eight years my instinct was proved right, as I wrote four novels within its four walls. AS SOON as I walked through the door of the house in Dromone I knew I could write there.