About 2km from the picturesque village of Mulranny, Yvonne's Cottage is a father and daughter business, owned and run by Kevin and Katrina Moran.
Just visible up a steep laneway as you're going through Rosturk - and very handy to the Great Western Greenway - there's a slight air of unreality about the chocolate box cottage, it just seems too cute to be true. But - if you can take your eyes off the view of Croagh Patrick across Clew Bay - you'll find it's very real and, with a turf fire burning in the open hearth, very welcoming too.
Kevin is the great baker who prepares all kinds of treats for hungry visitors every morning - and the chatty host, who tells the story of the tiny 19th century cottage that he, and his father before him, was born in. How these three little rooms were once home to a family of twelve, and it gradually fell into ruin once they built a new house across the field that's now home to Seamus - the friendly donkey who welcomes guests as they arrive for teas or a bite of lunch.
Sadly, Kevin's eldest daughter, Yvonne, died in 2008. So he and his wife, Barbara, decided to renovate the old cottage in her memory - there's an especially lovely photograph of her just inside the door in the main room, and you can feel the TLC that's gone into recreating the old family home. The rooms are tiny but they're choc-a-bloc with the memorabilia from a 1950s childhood and Kevin delights in explaining how his granny had the little curtained off bed beside the fire, where she could keep an eye on them all and keep up with the craic.
Kevin bakes everything in the morning and serves the scones, pancakes, tarts and tea-cake himself - and there are hot and cold savoury dishes too, that are especially popular with hungry cyclists from the Greenway.
As it's a real, live business (and a very tasty one at that) rather than a museum, it's hard to imagine anyone who wouldn't enjoy Yvonne's Cottage. Children will be fascinated by the way family life used to be - and not all that long ago at that...
