The art house of Roundstone

There is a white horse that wanders round the wild and seductive gardens of Errisbeg House, just beyond Roundstone in Connemara. You look up and he appears, magical as a unicorn, from behind the natural oblong of the rock pool, or the bush of wild red roses, or a hummock of ferns and nettles, or a bright clump of foxgloves. The same white horse also appears in different forms on several canvases that are lying scattered on the grass, drying in the hot afternoon sun, the work of some of the artists in residence at Errisbeg.

For the past five years, visual artists have been coming to Errisbeg for two weeks in the summer on informal residencies. The house is owned by Richard de Stacpoole. His grandmother, Eileen Palmer, was brought up in Glenlo Abbey, which has since been converted into a hotel just outside Galway. In the 1930s, she took a long lease on the Victorian hunting lodge of Errisbeg, using it as a summer house, and set about creating the gardens. Richard de Stacpoole bought the freehold a few years ago, and for the last four years, he has made Errisbeg his permanent home.

"When I came to live here full-time, I decided I had to make the house work so I could continue to live here," he explains. He has been doing this in a number of ways, which include facilitating weddings in the gardens, and letting the odd film crew use the house as a location.

The increasing number of PVC windows acts as a barometer for the fortunes of the house: the old windows have been replaced piecemeal as money became available. "There are 43 windows in the house, and I've replaced all but six now," he explains. "Of course I'd love to replace the originals, but the cost is prohibitive."

Five summers ago, there was an open letter doing the rounds of the Roundstone shop and pub noticeboards: a group of German artists were looking for a house in which to come and work in for a short period. De Stacpoole answered. If they didn't mind a few cobwebs, he told them, he thought they might like Errisbeg.

The artists who arrived five years ago did indeed like Errisbeg, and they did a lot of work when they were there. The experiment set de Stacpoole thinking as to how the larger community could benefit from future visits. By that time, the house was his, and he was now thinking of long-term commitments to the area. The artists who came five years ago were indirectly responsible for sparking off the idea for Roundstone Open Arts Week, now in its fourth year, and of which de Stacpoole is the director.

"I thought it would be a good idea to have an exhibition of the work the artists had done when they were here. Things grew out of that. I wanted to involve the community as much as possible. I run the Youth Club here during the year, and all the arts weeks have had and always will have the theme of youth and the environment."

For the last four years, in the fortnight preceding the Arts Week, a group of artists have been coming to Errisbeg. Word of mouth and the website were the points of contact from which selections are made. This year, seven visual artists came: painters Rosie McGurran, Heather McReynolds, Clive Pates, and Ben Salmon; photographers Dermot Blackburn and Matthew Kellet; and sculptor Janet Crymble. Three were English, one American, and three were from Northern Ireland.

All the artists get their own room in the big house. The bathroom is shared, and everyone helps themselves to breakfast and lunch. Turns are taken at cooking the evening meal, but the emphasis is very much on informality. There are no studios: artists find somewhere to settle in the house's many rooms - or outdoors when weather allows - and work where they want. For all this, they pay £20 a week towards their food, and another £5 each as a contribution towards electricity. There is no formal agreement to donate work at the end of the residency, but all the artists who were there last week said they will, nevertheless.

In addition to showing their work in de Stacpoole's Stable Gallery across the yard, at the end of the residency the artists also work with local people, keeping to the environment theme. This year, sculptor Janet Crymble and photographer Dermot Blackburn worked with young people, creating land-based installation pieces from seaweed on the nearby Dog's Bay beach, and making native American dream-catchers to hang in the old cemetery.

Why does de Stacpoole open his house to artists every summer in the way he does, since he receives no grant to do so? "I see it as being a key part of Arts Week," he says simply. "Philanthropy", a word as Victorian as the house, is the one that comes to mind.

Late afternoon. Rosie McGurran props her fierce, bright, hard painting of a girl in a red Connemara skirt against a dark forest to dry against a garden bench. Heather McReynolds finishes painting images of seaweed onto a piece of wood from on old curragh. Ben Salmon comes back from the village, where he has left some portraits to be framed. Mutual agreement: time for a swim.

On Dog's Bay, where the cold water is blue and green and the hot white sand is soft as flour underfoot, the artists explain what the residency has meant to them. "Spending a lot of time with other artists; learning from them," says Salmon, who is 21 and untrained, and who has moved to Seville in the last year to paint full-time.

"The people. And the place," McGurran offers. "I've just spent six months preparing for an exhibition and didn't think I'd be able to do a thing now, but this place is so amazing, I've been doing loads."

"Meeting Richard," McReynolds states. "I didn't think there were people like him left in our greedy world."

Roundstone has a fair complement of high-profile residents and holiday-makers. Composer Bill Whelan, who bought the house Kate O'Brien used to live in, has a recording studio and a house at the edge of the village. Writer and cartographer Tim Robinson lives there year-round. Mary Banotti has a house near Errisbeg. Ruairi Quinn, who opened the arts week on Saturday, regularly rents a house in the area. De Stacpoole knows them all.

`CONTACTS help. I know a lot of people. How do I programme? I just rang round and asked people to do things. They could only say `no'." Among those who said "yes" this year are Frank McGuinness, who will be reading from his work; Tim Robinson, who will be co-leading a walk with naturalist Gordon D'Arcy; and Donough O'Brien, Kate O'Brien's nephew, who is the guest speaker at a seminar about her. Last year, the week made a profit of £1,300, after two years of losses. This year, de Stacpoole is hoping to make a bit more, and to attract more sponsors and funding for next year. The main sponsor this year was Ireland 2000, the National Millennium Committee, which allocated £2,000.

Clive Pates is a landscape painter. "The best thing about the residency is the focus it gives you," he explains. "Knowing you have to have some pieces ready to show at the end really motivates you." We are walking down the grassy lanes to the village. Connemara is lit from all angles by the rare intense sunlight. "And look at all this," he says, after a while, his arm extending to encompass half a bog and several mountains. "It's a painter's dream."

Later on, back at Errisbeg, I go out to the empty garden to look at the paintings again. On Rosie McGurran's canvas with the girl in the Connemara skirt, a small white horse has since been painted into the scene, as if it was always there, just waiting for the right time to emerge from the background of dark trees.

Roundstone Open Arts Week runs until July 9th. Information: 095-35834 or www.connemara. net/roundstone-open-arts