You could be forgiven for thinking that you had walked onto the set of the Lord of the Rings when you visit Mayo Glamping just outside Castlebar. A babbling stream, grazing sheep, campfire smoke and a row of hobbit huts greet you when you arrive to check in at your home for the night.
All of this is the brainchild of Stephen Prendergast, a farmer’s son who was given 1.7 acres of the farm “to do whatever I wanted with it”. He has spent the last three years building a real-life fairy town that movie producers could only dream of.
“I have one family that comes here regularly and their two little girls wait up at night to see the fairies,” says Stephen, who welcomes guests from as far afield as the USA. Part of the attraction is The Iron Throne from HBO series Game of Thrones.
“I had a guy staying here that was an extra from Game of Thrones and I had a guy that worked from season one to three as a cameraman. When he arrived he didn’t know about the Game of Thrones toilet. It has brought a lot of people, especially from the US over.”
Stephen Prendergast.
Stephen finds that customers today are looking for an experience that is slightly different to a hotel stay, for example. Tourists from far away are here to find out how the Irish live and Stephen has found himself explaining to a group from California that the walls around his glamping site are only a recent addition and not part of the local history.
The Iron Throne.
“People are looking for an intimate experience. I find a lot of customers want to interact and talk to you. They ask about the area and tell you about where they are from.”
The arrival of Air BnB on the hospitality scene has even seen B&Bs move away from providing a cooked breakfast to a more continental-style approach, says Stephen. He has a communal kitchen on the site where people can cook their own food or opt for the basic cereals provided. There is also an outdoor pizza oven for guests to use.
“Everything is self-built; so what is wrong is right. In the kitchen for example I forgot about leaving a space for running a cable for the lights. So I decided to make up a light and ran the cable outside but made it look vintage and old. Things like that are fine.”
A helpful hobby
In fact, building is a passion for Stephen. He says he will happily build stone walls outside in the rain all day rather than changing the bed sheets which he out-sources to a local cleaning company.
“When I was younger I’d be on the farm creating straw-bale houses, I had a friend that used to come over and we’d be building tree houses and things like that. I wanted to create somewhere I would enjoy myself and worked from there.”
Hobbit Huts at Mayo Glamping.
In fact, Stephen’s resourcefulness would be considered very on-trend at the moment. He used off-cuts of timber from a saw mill to section off an adult-only area for the sauna and hot tub. There are re-used telephone poles creating a border around grassy areas and he used the stones from a wall that was going to be knocked down for the outside of the hobbit huts.
“What I’d like to do is more arty buildings and have them more self-contained, with an en suite and kitchenette. I’m trying to make as much things in the site as hand built as possible. There’s a local shop in Castlebar called Store of Happiness and they have furniture by local crafters. A lot of the things in the huts are from there. I’d like to make furniture as well, things like staircases, just to challenge myself.”
However, having made a lot of the site himself has made it difficult to avail of grants for start-up enterprises.
“Because a lot of the things were upcycled and I did a lot of the work myself it didn’t really cost a lot, just before I opened, I took out a business loan to get some of the minor things done; electrical, bedding and the finish. When I came back from working in Canada I was unemployed, so while I was looking for work I was building it. I was on social welfare and they put me on to an enterprise allowance so I had two years where I’d get social welfare while I set up my business. I got a [back-to-work enterprise allowance] grant of €2,500 towards public liability and computers. That helped get the ball rolling.
“Staying in rural Mayo is important. When I left I didn’t realise what we had here. At the time, in the middle of the recession, people were saying that there is no work here and when I went away I realised we have so much in our area to offer. There’s Westport and so many things to see within a 20 minute drive.”
Inside the fairy house at Mayo Glamping.
The National Museum of Country Life, Ballycroy National Park, The Great Western Greenway, Croagh Patrick, Achill Island and Downpatrick Head are all accessible by car from the glamping site.
A life lesson
Becoming a rural business owner has been a learning curve and Stephen says he has to balance the books between the busy times and the quieter parts of the year.
“I close for December and January. Then for February it’s just weekends and I open full time again in March. I get a lot of people around St Patrick’s weekend. When the kids are off school in the summer it’s busy every night. This time of the year I’d be saving up for the winter. Anything that comes in after that is a bonus.”
Stephen has paused investment in further accommodation while he focuses on an office and shop for the site, that way guests won’t have to drive into the village to get supplies after they arrive.
“If I have all the basics there it will be a benefit for people.”
The fairy house.
Insurance
At the moment you can only book Mayo Glamping through Air BnB as it provides public liability insurance. No different to other rural businesses in recent months, there is a question mark over whether glamping sites will be able to get insurance going forward.
“The company I was with haven’t pulled out of Ireland but they’ve pulled out of glamping and it makes it harder, especially with Brexit coming down the line. Are the English companies going to look after the Irish market? Because glamping is still relatively new, it’s hard to get a quote and I think that’s just the uncertainty of it. We might not be open next year unless something is done.”
For now though, it’s business as usual and Stephen has just opened his fairy house for guests. Sitting across from this new addition is a wishing well, which he kept after GMarsh TV productions finished filming Living With a Fairy for RTE Junior on site.
As Tinkerbell would say, magic can appear when you least expect it.
You could be forgiven for thinking that you had walked onto the set of the Lord of the Rings when you visit Mayo Glamping just outside Castlebar. A babbling stream, grazing sheep, campfire smoke and a row of hobbit huts greet you when you arrive to check in at your home for the night.
All of this is the brainchild of Stephen Prendergast, a farmer’s son who was given 1.7 acres of the farm “to do whatever I wanted with it”. He has spent the last three years building a real-life fairy town that movie producers could only dream of.
“I have one family that comes here regularly and their two little girls wait up at night to see the fairies,” says Stephen, who welcomes guests from as far afield as the USA. Part of the attraction is The Iron Throne from HBO series Game of Thrones.
“I had a guy staying here that was an extra from Game of Thrones and I had a guy that worked from season one to three as a cameraman. When he arrived he didn’t know about the Game of Thrones toilet. It has brought a lot of people, especially from the US over.”
Stephen Prendergast.
Stephen finds that customers today are looking for an experience that is slightly different to a hotel stay, for example. Tourists from far away are here to find out how the Irish live and Stephen has found himself explaining to a group from California that the walls around his glamping site are only a recent addition and not part of the local history.
The Iron Throne.
“People are looking for an intimate experience. I find a lot of customers want to interact and talk to you. They ask about the area and tell you about where they are from.”
The arrival of Air BnB on the hospitality scene has even seen B&Bs move away from providing a cooked breakfast to a more continental-style approach, says Stephen. He has a communal kitchen on the site where people can cook their own food or opt for the basic cereals provided. There is also an outdoor pizza oven for guests to use.
“Everything is self-built; so what is wrong is right. In the kitchen for example I forgot about leaving a space for running a cable for the lights. So I decided to make up a light and ran the cable outside but made it look vintage and old. Things like that are fine.”
A helpful hobby
In fact, building is a passion for Stephen. He says he will happily build stone walls outside in the rain all day rather than changing the bed sheets which he out-sources to a local cleaning company.
“When I was younger I’d be on the farm creating straw-bale houses, I had a friend that used to come over and we’d be building tree houses and things like that. I wanted to create somewhere I would enjoy myself and worked from there.”
Hobbit Huts at Mayo Glamping.
In fact, Stephen’s resourcefulness would be considered very on-trend at the moment. He used off-cuts of timber from a saw mill to section off an adult-only area for the sauna and hot tub. There are re-used telephone poles creating a border around grassy areas and he used the stones from a wall that was going to be knocked down for the outside of the hobbit huts.
“What I’d like to do is more arty buildings and have them more self-contained, with an en suite and kitchenette. I’m trying to make as much things in the site as hand built as possible. There’s a local shop in Castlebar called Store of Happiness and they have furniture by local crafters. A lot of the things in the huts are from there. I’d like to make furniture as well, things like staircases, just to challenge myself.”
However, having made a lot of the site himself has made it difficult to avail of grants for start-up enterprises.
“Because a lot of the things were upcycled and I did a lot of the work myself it didn’t really cost a lot, just before I opened, I took out a business loan to get some of the minor things done; electrical, bedding and the finish. When I came back from working in Canada I was unemployed, so while I was looking for work I was building it. I was on social welfare and they put me on to an enterprise allowance so I had two years where I’d get social welfare while I set up my business. I got a [back-to-work enterprise allowance] grant of €2,500 towards public liability and computers. That helped get the ball rolling.
“Staying in rural Mayo is important. When I left I didn’t realise what we had here. At the time, in the middle of the recession, people were saying that there is no work here and when I went away I realised we have so much in our area to offer. There’s Westport and so many things to see within a 20 minute drive.”
Inside the fairy house at Mayo Glamping.
The National Museum of Country Life, Ballycroy National Park, The Great Western Greenway, Croagh Patrick, Achill Island and Downpatrick Head are all accessible by car from the glamping site.
A life lesson
Becoming a rural business owner has been a learning curve and Stephen says he has to balance the books between the busy times and the quieter parts of the year.
“I close for December and January. Then for February it’s just weekends and I open full time again in March. I get a lot of people around St Patrick’s weekend. When the kids are off school in the summer it’s busy every night. This time of the year I’d be saving up for the winter. Anything that comes in after that is a bonus.”
Stephen has paused investment in further accommodation while he focuses on an office and shop for the site, that way guests won’t have to drive into the village to get supplies after they arrive.
“If I have all the basics there it will be a benefit for people.”
The fairy house.
Insurance
At the moment you can only book Mayo Glamping through Air BnB as it provides public liability insurance. No different to other rural businesses in recent months, there is a question mark over whether glamping sites will be able to get insurance going forward.
“The company I was with haven’t pulled out of Ireland but they’ve pulled out of glamping and it makes it harder, especially with Brexit coming down the line. Are the English companies going to look after the Irish market? Because glamping is still relatively new, it’s hard to get a quote and I think that’s just the uncertainty of it. We might not be open next year unless something is done.”
For now though, it’s business as usual and Stephen has just opened his fairy house for guests. Sitting across from this new addition is a wishing well, which he kept after GMarsh TV productions finished filming Living With a Fairy for RTE Junior on site.
As Tinkerbell would say, magic can appear when you least expect it.
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