Discover Cong
The Mayo village on a limestone isthmus, with a canal that never carried a boat
A village in two counties, on water that runs underground
Cong is a small place. The Central Statistics Office counted 145 people in the settlement at the 2016 census, and the village you walk through is four short streets, an abbey ruin, a market cross on a fourteenth-century base and a river that only surfaces for the last few hundred metres of its journey between two of Ireland's biggest lakes.
Everything the village is known for grew out of that geology. The monks built a fishing house on the river where it finally comes up. The Guinness family, who owned Ashford and 26,000 acres around it, paid for the canal that failed and planted the woods that did not. And in 1951 a film crew arrived looking for a village that looked like the Ireland of the imagination, found one, and left behind a tourism industry that has outlasted nearly everyone involved.
Where To Eat
From fine dining seafood to fish and chips by the harbour
Pat Cohan's Bar & Dining Room
The Quiet Man's Pat Cohan's, now a working bar and dining room at the bottom of Main Street.
The Crowe's Nest Bar & Bistro
Ryan's Hotel bar with a river patio and the village's only bus stop outside the door.
What's On
Upcoming events and things happening in Cong
CongRegation
RecurringA November unconference where entry is earned by writing a post, not by buying a ticket.
Cong Food Village Festival
Returns annuallyA free two-day street food festival with a farmers' market, cooking demos and the Cong Duck Derby.
The Cong to Galway Sailing Race
Returns annuallyCruisers race the full length of Lough Corrib from Cong to Galway city, on a course first sailed in 1882.
Cong Right Now
Cong is inland Mayo between two big lakes, which in practice means rain that arrives without much warning and paths in Cong Woods that stay wet long after it stops. Bring boots rather than trainers and a jacket you can walk in.