Multi-hyphenate Mike Harding, possibly best-known as a songwriter and musician, tells a story of the time he was due to appear at the Clifden Arts Festival.
A writer had been delayed, “so they asked if I’d step in to open the festival”. He says there was a sea of bemused young faces as he described himself as a poet, writer and stand-up comic.
“They looked blank. Then I mentioned that I composed the music for Danger Mouse, and wrote some of the early scripts, and there was this huge cheer, and they were all stamping their feet.”
It’s hard to disagree with his audience. Made with Brian Cosgrove and Mark Hall, Danger Mouse was staple viewing during many a childhood, and its genius doesn’t date. Harding also voiced Count Duckula and has appeared in the TV series All Creatures Great and Small.
He might have added that he is also an accomplished trad musician and, if all the other careers fail him, he could put housebuilder on the list, because when he fell in love with the cottage overlooking Cleggan beach, it was little more than a ruin.
Harding was born in Manchester to an Irish family and grew up steeped in music and stories of home. He also grew up in a very welcoming family, a tradition of hospitality he has maintained with the cottage at Cleggan, which has hosted the likes of Christy Moore, Paul Brady and Eleanor Shanley, who featured in a session recorded there for BBC Radio 2.
But before all of that, it needed a roof. “It had been described as a ‘traditional cottage in need of TLC,’” Harding laughs, recalling years’ worth of sheep droppings and an awful lot of bailer twine. Undaunted, he set to putting the house back to its original state, a cosy two-bedroom cottage, fully insulated and finished with lime plaster and render, deep inset windows, a small stove in the fireplace and a rich sense of peace. There are coloured slate floor tiles, and mosaic tiles on some of the walls, including a few made by Harding himself.
The house also has a sense of fun. “We had many a happy day there,” Harding confirms. “When my grandchildren came along they were brought over every summer to catch Rossadillisk crabs with rashers on a line, and to swim in the sea near Omey.
Friends from the music world came over the years, and I have great memories of the music and the craic, the half-door open and Dezi Donnelly playing his fiddle, the sounds going out across the fields and cows lifting their heads to listen.”
More recently, he built a studio next door. The original two-bed cottage is about 66 sq m (710 sq ft) and the studio is 21 sq m including storage and living space, giving you lots of options in how you want to configure sleeping arrangements.
“It’s a unique property within walking distance of the fishing village of Cleggan,” says Sorcha O’Sullivan of Matt O’Sullivan Auctioneers, who are seeking €450,000 for Tigh Michlín. “It is on an elevated site with amazing sea views out over Cleggan bay,” she adds.
In between getting ready to move on from his beloved cottage, and doing some sessions at the Edinburgh Festival, Harding is preparing for the publication of his latest book of poetry, The Lonely Zoroastrian, due out this autumn with Luath Press.
It takes its title from the UK 1896 census, which covered Ireland at that time. “Out of the 3.5 million population,” Harding says, “there were three Muslim people, all living in the one household, and one Zoroastrian man. I pictured him, tending the fire on his own.”
Harding is now selling the cottage because, with grown-up children and grandchildren going to college, the calls on his time take him elsewhere. “It’s time for the next chapter in the story. The house and studio are ideal for an artist, or writer or a craftsperson.
Or as a holiday home for a family that had grandparents that would enjoy the studio bedroom and wet room, as my mother did.
“It is what it is,” he concludes.
“A traditional cottage with underfloor heating, and a studio with all amenities, including an EV charger. It’s a bit quirky – but then I always was strange.”
The house is being sold with all fixtures and fittings, including furniture, crockery and a nice line in Le Creuset pans, so it really is ready to step into, the echoes of its stories, and songs intact.
Whether you’re in the market for beautiful beaches, a wonderful community, poetic inspiration, or a house and studio that comes complete with the legacies of epic music sessions, Tigh Miclín could well be the place.
