The Best Place to Shop For a Christmas Tree in Ireland
Date: 12/07/2003December 8, 2003
A few miles outside the city of Kilkenny, on the Callan Road in Cuffesgrange, you'll find Highbank Farm, at one time a big Irish estate with impressive stone stables.
Today the young couple that owns it has planted some of its acres with apples...the rest with pine trees. The old stables have been beautifully converted into a shop and, upstairs, a small restaurant, both of which are open for business each year from late November until the 23rd of December. The shop sells tree trims and handmade wreaths...the restaurant offers hot chocolate and gingerbread cookies.
A tractor-pulled train takes you out into the fields, where you can choose your own tree to be cut and dragged back to your car. We bought an 8-foot Douglas fir, for which we paid 36 euro. Five- and 6-foot varieties cost but 25 euro.
It's cold, windy, and muddy in the tree fields, so wear your Wellingtons and bundle up.
Kathleen Peddicord
Publisher, International Living
P.S. Santa is in residence, in a private little house erected just for him, Monday through Friday 4 p.m. until 8 p.m. and Saturday and Sunday 10 a.m. until 8 p.m. You need an appointment to visit with him. Call (353) 56-772-9918.
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