Roscommon – Featuring Lough Key Forest Par

I was just in my teens the first time I visited Lough Key Forest park. The facilities seemed impossibly sophisticated and modern in an Ireland which had just emerged from the sixties. From the wood and glass lakeside restaurant and gift shop to the brutalist concrete Moylurg tower that soared above the treetops giving you a birds-eye view of the lakes and especially of the scenic Castle island, it felt like I had stepped into an Ireland at once familiar and yet somehow quite foreign. I’ve been a regular visitor ever since, returning in my later teens, on camping trips with friends, and dropping by on journeys to and from the west. Any time I smell wild garlic, I’m immediately transported back in time and space to the winding trails of the woodlands and bog gardens.