Stark but unhackneyed, the Sperrins remain the North's best-kept secret

The Giant's Causeway or the Mournes lure most visitors to Northern Ireland, but Fionnuala O Connor makes the case for the unspoilt Sperrins.

On a summer evening, An Creagán is hushed outside and cheerful within. The two resident ducks preen by the pond beyond the restaurant's deep window. As daylight fades along the skyline giggling teenage waitresses carry a birthday cake upstairs, and pause as the speaker inside gives the cue to light candles before marching in.

For a break from the bustling world, this community-run centre can have few equals. The best endorsement is that local people don't just run the place - they eat and drink there as well.

Set in bogland, bleak and beautiful, An Creagán is dramatic in winter, magical in sunshine. Yet the surrounding Sperrin Mountains are all but unknown to outsiders. Creggan townland might as well be an island - though it lies midway along the main road from Cookstown to Omagh, 60 miles from Belfast, 40 from Derry.

Southerners should explore the Sperrins. Northerners should discover the most unspoilt place on their own doorstep, if only as a good roadside place to eat in a countryside short of restaurants.

At some of the North's best beaches and in seaside shops and bars you can hear people who've come up for the first time and headed straight for the four-star draws. The Giant's Causeway or the Mournes still win the bulk of southern tourist traffic; car-parks are sprinkled with registrations from Wexford and Cork as well as the more familiar Dublin and Louth.

With posses of cameras taking turns to pose groups, the Causeway is too popular in high summer for its own good. Early this month a harsh-voiced English busker, repertoire featuring much repetition of Molly Malone, set up in the natural amphitheatre of the cliffs and did his best to wreck the serenity of rocks and sea.

But like confidence in lasting peace, northern tourism is fragile, internal tourism least adventurous of all. Segregation and mistrust reinforced by the past 30 years have made swathes of countryside out-of-bounds for many: like south Armagh, damned forever in some minds as "bandit country", and the Sperrins, where Irish died as a first language no more than 50 years ago.

Even the name sounds alien to many. Tell them to look right as they travel from Cookstown to Omagh and some still can't see the beauty.

Moorland and heathery hill country that straddles counties Tyrone and Derry, full of lakes and hidden valleys rich in relics from prehistoric times, the Sperrins' prime appeal is quietness and a view that encourages contemplation. Poor land which breeds fierce local pride; like much of the least-populated northern countryside, it is largely Catholic.

But the community venture of An Creagán began long ago to build links with other tourism projects, running art workshops and lectures on archaeology as well as family history and traditional music and dancing.

Fishermen in the Glenelly and Owenkillew rivers and hardy cyclists were pioneer visitors. The Creggan venture offers hope and a model for beautiful, lonely places elsewhere, as a lyrical 1996 Irish Times account by Nuala O'Faolain found. "Surely the most unhackneyed landscape in the country," she wrote, tracing the centre's development from a failed football pitch that the community paid for in the 1970s through a timid appeal to the credit union for a loan to build their first pre-fab.

Enniskillen architect Richard Pearce designed a building that "mirrors the archaeological sites of the area", granite roofed in slate, "inside a profusion of colour and warmth, the walls golden-yellow...serving the function that the civil hall or the café does in a French or Italian village."

The centre takes bookings for the self-catering cottages, holds a permanent exhibition on local lore and has space for conferences as well as the restaurant and bar. The cottages are a major attraction. One recent weekend the occupants included a fisherman with strong Geordie accent and a young family from Scotland, the mother born in nearby Greencastle. Snug among stands of trees and bushes, built in clachans of three and five houses a couple of hundred yards apart, the little houses are white-washed, with half-doors and an open fire - but with central heating and television to soften the austerity, and phones available. The fire is set when you arrive with enough turf provided to round off an evening.

The cottages are open all year; Hallowe'en at low season prices, Christmas and Easter at mid. If you are minded to explore the secret Sperrins, there are even some vacancies at the end of this month.