Philosophy. Don’t you just love a house where the first category on their website – even before you get to the accommodation and the food – is ‘philosophy’. Ah, little Bervie, an old coastguard station dating from 1932, a place where you step from the garden through a little wicket gate, and there you are on the beach at Keel strand. If this is philosophy, then it is epicureanism, pure and simple, the simple and modest life, the untroubled soul, flecked with sea salt and sand and sunshine. Bervie makes you a child all over again.
Elizabeth cooks whilst John pulls the corks, and the food, like the philosophy, is simple and true, the foods of the area cooked in the way that suits them best. Don’t miss the unique Achill lamb, which enjoys a distinctive pré-salé taste that deserves to have its own geographical label, for it is as distinctive as Connemara lamb, but more saline, more succulent. The food, the comfort, the calm rooms, all chime as sweetly as good philosophy. Bervie creates a synthesis for your soul.
