Carrickmacross Travel Guide

CARRICKMACROSS , ten miles south of Castleblaney, is the county's second most important town, boosted in the nineteenth century by a prosperous lace-making industry. Still, it's a rather modest place with just one broad main street: a planter's Gothic church stands at one end, and a fine mid-nineteenth century courthouse at the other. In between, lies a bustling array of pubs, shops and Georgian houses, and today's lacemakers have their tiny showcase in the nineteenth-century market buildings at the lower end of the main street. Just outside town, landscaped parkland of sumptuous oaks and beeches surrounds Lough Fea . Further out, some three miles down the Kingscourt Road, is the Dún a Rí Forest Park with more good wooded walks. The massive Nuremore Hotel is very expensive (tel 042/966 1438; over £130/?165.07), but there are plenty of B&Bs near the centre of Carrickmacross, up the Derry Road past the Texaco petrol station: try Cloughvalley House (tel 042/966 1246; £26-33/?33.01-41.90), or head for Eureka at 27 Ard Rois Ave (tel 042/966 2009; £33-40/?41.90-50.79), a friendly, low-key B&B.