A family place
Bayfield has been part of our family for almost 200 years. Built by our great-great-grandparents from local limestone, it sits between the Burren hills and Galway Bay, looking out over a landscape that has changed remarkably little in all that time.
The house has weathered its fair share of storms, welcomed generations of family and friends, and collected more than a few stories along the way. Some of its original stone walls are nearly two metres thick — a reminder that whoever built it intended it to last.
Bayfield was once a working farm, and although those days are long gone, you'll still often find cows grazing in the field outside.
Like many Irish families, ours gradually spread across the water to Britain, while others stayed closer to home, in the Burren and Connemara. As it happens, the two sides came together at the Galway Races, where our grandparents first met. A rather fitting beginning to the next chapter.
During the Second World War, our grandmother brought our mother, Moya, and her sister Valerie from London to Bayfield to escape the bombing. Their father, meanwhile, was skippering merchant ships across the Atlantic.
Those years left lasting memories of the house, the fields and the sea — stories we grew up hearing and which have stayed with us ever since.
From Ruin to Restoration
By the time Mum took over Bayfield in the 1980s, the house had seen better days. Much better days, in fact.
The old thatched roof had collapsed, cows wandered freely through the front door, and the ruins became our favourite adventure playground. We'd scramble over the fallen stones, disappear into the overgrown orchard and spend hours playing beneath the old apple trees.
We lived in the little studio at the back, cooked over open fires and washed in the sea. It was all wonderfully basic — and, looking back, rather magical.
Restoring Bayfield seemed an almost impossible dream. But Mum, Moya, was determined to bring the old house back to life.
The roof came first. We would have loved to restore the original thatch, but the budget had other ideas. Then, slowly, room by room and year by year, the rest of the house began to take shape.
Michael, our builder, has been an extraordinary part of that journey, helping turn what was once a crumbling farmhouse into the home you see today.
Almost everything Bayfield has earned over the years has gone straight back into looking after it. We've tried to keep the character of the old house wherever possible, while making it comfortable and welcoming for the families and friends who come to stay.
It has never been about making Bayfield perfect. It's about keeping it alive, loved and full of people.
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Bayfield in late 1800
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An early view of the 1900
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Painting of Bayfield House by Edward Hynes
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The front of Bayfield
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Bayfield before the renovation works
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Bayfield before the renovation works
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Bayfield with no roof
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Roof construction begins
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A young Maxx during the renovation works in the 80s
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The roof is almost completed
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Moya and John Kenna surrounded by their five children (from left Louis, Rowena, Armorel, Rupert and Maxwell)
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A young Mike hard at work in Bayfield House. Mike, his wife Carmel and their family were instrumental in making Bayfield what is is today.
A house full of stories
Over the generations, Bayfield has been home to quite a collection of characters. One of the most colourful was our Great Uncle Edward — known locally as Lollypop— a talented caricaturist whose adventures took him from the high seas to London's fashionable society before he eventually returned to the quiet shores of Galway Bay.
His story is too good to squeeze into a few lines here, so we've given him a page of his own.
And as for Bayfield today? We hope it continues to be what it has always been: a place where people gather, children explore, meals stretch long into the evening and new stories are added to the old ones.