La Nua Eco Housing Project

closed

The La Nua Eco Housing Project involved the establishment of a number ecologically renovated houses using sustainable methods and materials, part serviced by renewable and solar power as a cross-border tourism amenity. The project’s aim was to use the natural rural environment as an economic resource, reinstating run-down buildings and converting this into a solvent business strategy aimed at the growing eco-tourism market in Ireland. The houses are spread across the three counties of Cavan, Leitrim and Fermanagh, they are available for self-catering accommodation and can be viewed in detail on the website www.irishecoholidays.com 2 properties officially launched by SEUPB Programme Manager, Eimear Murphy were Aughlin Cottage in Leitrim and Charlie’s Place in Cavan. Aughlin Cottage started out as a three roomed traditional country cottage over one hundred and fifty years old, it had a thatched roof with bog oak rafters and a stone flag floor. Later it was re-roofed with corrugated iron and concrete floors put in and for the past twenty years it was abandoned and empty, until the La Nua Eco-Housing Projectand the EU funds brought it back to life. The house has been reconstructed maintaining the most of the original old stone walls and plastering them with a lime render and whitewash and infilled with hemp and lime mix. The roof is slated using Eco-Star recycled rubber slates and solar panels are used to heat the water and the main space heating is delivered from a wood pellet boiler system. It now has three bedrooms, two ensuite and sleeps six people comfortably. Charlie’s Place has four bedrooms two ensuite and sleeps eight comfortably. Built over one hundred years ago of stone and lime mortar, with a stone flag floor and a thatched roof, it was up to recently a small three roomed, iron-roofed cottage and was derelict for some time. It has now been extended with the extension constructed from timber frame with hemp and lime infill and roofed again using rubber slates from recycled rubber and plastic from the bumpers and interiors of cars. The windows and doors are made from cedar-wood, there is a half-door as it had when Charlie grew up and lived there for over eighty years. This property retains the old atmosphere and quaintness of the quiet rural cottage. One of the goals of the project was to reinstate the dwelling with minimum carbon footprint, on the site chosen as settlement by people hundreds of years ago, and it has clearly been achieved. Visitors can now stay in this special house sustainability reinstated with care and vision to be enjoyed and appreciated.

Medium