Cong Mayo Village
Cong is a picturesque village in County Mayo at the narrow isthmus between Lough Corrib and Lough Mask, a settlement of considerable charm whose combination of the ruined Augustinian abbey, the dry canal that was never completed, the extensive cave and swallow hole system and the extraordinary setting beside the grounds of Ashford Castle creates one of the most atmospherically rewarding small villages in Connacht. The village achieved worldwide cultural visibility as the principal filming location for John Ford's 1952 film The Quiet Man and the filming associations have become the dominant tourism narrative.
Ashford Castle, the luxury hotel on the edge of the village, is one of the grandest and most celebrated castle hotels in Ireland, a Victorian Gothic castle set in extensive grounds on the shores of Lough Corrib that was developed from the original castle of the de Burgo family and subsequently expanded by the Guinness family in the late nineteenth century into the palatial hotel complex it remains today. The castle grounds and the lough shore are accessible to visitors who wish to see the exterior setting without the hotel tariff.
The Augustinian Abbey of Cong, founded in the twelfth century and among the finest Romanesque monastic ruins in Connacht, provides the historical dimension to a village whose character is equally shaped by the natural landscape of the isthmus between the two great Connaught loughs. The system of underground rivers connecting the two lakes and emerging at various swallow holes and caves around the village adds a geological interest to the Abbey ruins.