The old green An Post box set into a Carrigart stone wall, ivy alongside — letters and communication.
Davey John’s Forge · Journal

From the forge.

Notes on restoring the place: what we’ve built, and why. Two stories to start: the sauna in the old peat shed, and the games room in the forge itself.

The finished cottage from the gravel courtyard — white render, slate roof and the red door.
March 2024 · The cottage

Renovating the cottage

Before any of this began, the cottage was much as it had been left. The good room, the bedroom that became the kitchen, the surprise window behind the plaster: how the old rooms became one.
The finished sauna terrace in Donegal Quartz crazy paving, looking down to Mulroy Bay.
5 July 2025 · The sauna

Renovating the sauna

The hot tubs proved how much guests wanted to slow down, so the old peat shed became a hot-stone sauna: dry-stone walls, Donegal Quartz paving, and a copper shower with the bay in front of you.
The finished games room — burnt-pine walls, a pale tongue-and-groove ceiling and a light oak floor.
19 July 2025 · The games room

Building the games room

Three stays needed one shared room. We built it in the forge, opened up to the bay, walled in burnt pine around a preserved dry-stone feature wall. Free, and open whenever the weather turns.
The workshop with its new dark roof, beside the white games room, in evening light.
Underway · The workshop

Restoring the workshop

No building here is more his: the heavy work was done in it, and the steel over it is his own. We’re putting it back, carefully, as a place to gather.
Lobster and crab creels on the pier, moored boats and green hills across the bay beyond.
11 June 2026 · Mulroy Bay

Lobster off the boat

We got talking to Oisin, who fishes Mulroy Bay for lobster and brown crab. His boat, his trade, and how to have the same catch landed for your own kitchen.
The Carrigart One 8 restaurant front on Main Street at dusk, warm lights on and an ivy arch around the open door.
16 July 2026 · The village

Dinner at the Carrigart One 8

Friends staying with us came home from Main Street calling it one of the best meals of their trip. A chef home from the Caribbean, a house of family businesses, and horseshoes once made in the cellar.