Coming Back to Stillness at Sheen Falls Lodge

by Featured Contributor Andrew McCarthy

The thing about Sheen Falls Lodge is that it’s a very difficult place to leave. And since it’s situated in one of Ireland’s most alluring corners, this country house hotel that invites such lingering poses a challenge. Add to this, the longer you’re in residence, the more acute this problem becomes.

A few minutes outside the 17th-century market town of Kenmare, the gateway to the famous Ring of Kerry, the hotel wisely leans into its position beside the River Sheen above Kenmare Bay. It’s filled with welcoming nooks and crannies – both inside and out – that reward the inquisitive and the lazy. There are walking trails and strategically placed benches – beside the cascading falls, before an ivy-covered wall, under a mature oak with a view over the incoming tide of the bay and an occasional grey heron perching atop a small rock. Its common rooms – overstuffed chairs in the drawing room, large window seats of the sunroom, book-laden shelves of the library, high tea served on the patio above the river are all equally dangerous to a strict schedule.

Holder of two Michelin Keys, the Relais-Chateaux property has seventy-two oversized rooms – mine has a terrace directly adjacent to the running river and overlooking the five-arch stone bridge built in 1777. Watching the water flow takes up an inordinate amount of my time and causes me to be late for my massage in the Easanna Spa, forcing me to forgo a swim, steam, and sauna (oh, the compromises a pampered life demands).

The hotel offers falconry and skeet shooting, horseback riding, fly fishing, nearby golf, and an array of other activities to ward off all this pampered inertia. But breaking free of such enticements, I spend a day driving the twisting, Instagram-ready Ring of Kerry. The sun shines, it rains, fog rolls in, the wind howls, the sky clears, and the air is cool and still – a typical day in the southwest of Ireland. In the seaside village of Waterville, clouds move low and fast overhead, obscuring the tops of the mountains. At a picnic table outside a local pub, I warm myself with a pot of tea and savor an Irish staple, the ‘ham and cheese toastie’ (which is exactly what it sounds like), while watching the Atlantic roll in from America.

Back through the gates and safely inside the swaddled confines of Sheen Falls, three hundred acres, the clouds part as I wind my way up the long drive and notice a pair of archery targets lying in wait atop a field above the bay.

It’s there that Colin, a Cork man, warns me of ‘dry firing’ (drawing and releasing the bow string without the arrow being properly in place) and explains to me the ‘fletchings’ (the feathery things at the back of the arrow) and the ‘knocking point’ (where the arrow and bowstring meet up). He encourages me to tickle my chin with my thumb as I draw the bowstring back, and to be aware of my breathing in a yoga-type fashion, and of my “X/Y” axis.

“There’s more to this than I thought,” I concede.

Colin’s eyes narrow before summing up the philosophy of his Zen-like Irish teaching. “You must learn of yourself.”

I nod – not entirely sure I understand what the hell he’s talking about – and let it fly.

Walking back over the rolling grounds toward the hotel, through the old graveyard, the late-day sun sends rays slicing through a Celtic cross, and I squint to make out the date on the faded, tilting headstone – 1863.

After a dinner of tender fillet steak and potatoes prepared three ways (this is Ireland, after all) served on a table of pressed white linen while overlooking the falls, Declan, the concierge, approaches. With authority, he gives me some old-school Irish driving directions. “Go until you feel you’ve gone too far, then turn left before the twisted ash tree just past the petrol station. Ah, sure now you can’t miss it.”

And it’s down this narrow lane that I find Eamonn, with two kayaks waiting on the edge of Kenmare Bay just as the sun sets behind the Caha Mountains.

A recovering IT man who “chucked it all eight years ago” and rewrote his life as an outdoor guide, Eamonn leads me out into the bay as the light fades. We paddle among the uninhabited Greenane Islands. There are silhouettes of wild goats on the land and the bobbing heads of harbor seals emerging from the placid water. There is no moon. The lingering gloaming provides just enough reflected light off the water to merge land and sea and make me feel as if we’re moving through a dimension I haven’t previously experienced. Drifting, floating, breathing, silent. Am I still moving, am I still? After two hours, the complete blackness that’s fallen somehow provides the guidance we need – we make our way back to shore.

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Turning midnight as I return to Sheen Falls, the lobby is quiet, the fire in the hearth has died out for the night, just a few embers still glow. I wander into the empty sitting room and the library and the sunroom. All silent now. I poke my head into the bar – two couples are quietly chatting about their travels, sipping whisky. The barman offers me a seat with a barely perceptible nod. I demur.

Tucking deeply into my massive and overstuffed bed, the sound of the river slipping over the rocks with quiet, ceaseless assurance, I decide on a plan for tomorrow – I’m not leaving.