W hen I was a child, the site my house now stands on was a field where horses were kept. My friends and I used to come up here and spend hours riding on that hill. Later we'd lie in the long grass and chat about boys, vampires, the devil and God. There were late evenings when we walked home totally freaked out by each other. I'm still the best of friends with those fabulous girls.

Dingle is my home, the place I always will come back to.

I started building this house in the mid nineties. We had already built stables up here, low buildings in local stone, and I wanted to build a house that was a very traditional Kerry home, a one-and-a-half storey stone house.

It was to be a family home; we had four children between six and 10-years old at the time, but I also wanted a place where I could showcase art while caring for a family, and that's what I've achieved.

The central area houses the kitchen and has bedrooms overhead, but the living room and dining room are both double height, and have fantastic expanses of wall for hanging work, and really good light.

The living room is mostly used at the weekend and during the holidays by the now grown-up children and my youngest who is eight. They relax in there with the TV and entertain themselves and their friends. I'm more likely to be found in the kitchen, which I love.

I've kept all the pots and pans and workaday stuff in the back kitchen and I have a freestanding Aga in the middle of the larger 'socialising' kitchen, with chairs plonked all around it, where everybody can sit and chat and snack. I'm more likely to eat with friends at the kitchen table; the dining room is used for larger dinners, but people always tend to drift back into the kitchen anyway.

In Dingle, everybody just drops in. Paris is more formal, you ring up your friends and arrange to meet for dinner, but here people just show up with a loaf of home-baked bread or a bottle of wine and sit down to catch up. Paris is exciting, but for me Dingle is for winding down. Not that there is ever any shortage of excitement in Dingle, it has excellent restaurants, fantastic natural produce for cooking and the Atlantic coastline with its rugged offshore islands makes the scenery wild and totally breathtaking.

The first thing I like to do when I get home is light the fires, there's nothing like an open turf fire to make a house a home. My bedroom faces southwest, and is really warm and sunny in the evening.

I like to spend down time working or catching up with friends on the phone at my desk with a cold glass of wine and a good giggle. I enjoy reading on the sofa in the late afternoon with the sun streaming through the windows.

I love this house; it is more than a home to me, it's my refuge and a lovely workspace to boot.

Dingle has always had a great literary tradition and is a thriving Gaeltacht area. Not only is the Great Blasket Island off the tip of the Dingle Peninsula the most westerly point in Europe, but more importantly it was during the early 19th century, the mecca of the spoken word in the Irish tradition paralleling in some respects the Greek classical period. Commencing with Robin Flower's book The Islandman, more than 20 books have since then been written by islanders and patrons of their culture, but to date there hasn't been a big history of the visual arts on the Dingle Peninsula. Hopefully we are helping to redress this by showcasing the artists who spend time working here, both in Dingle and bang in the centre of Paris on the beautiful Île Saint Louis.

Interview and pictures by Barbara Egan

Who is Susan Callery?

Susan owns and runs the Greenlane Gallery in Dingle, Co Kerry and on the Île Saint Louis in Paris. Forthcoming exhibitions at the Dingle gallery include the works of west Kerry artist Patsy Farr, 11 to 24 October and renowned landscape artist Michael Flaherty, 25 October to 8 November.

home truths

What's your favourite room? The kitchen, it's the centre of my home. I love cooking for friends and family on the Aga.

Who inspires you? My mother and father are a constant inspiration. My father instilled in us that hard work is a privilege not to be taken lightly. Mom is a source of love and affection. They back us to the hilt always and do the same for our children.

What can't you live without? Nature. I need it on a daily basis. I love to walk/climb to the top of the hill behind my house and look out over the Dingle Peninsula.

Ideal dinner guest? My entire family and any interesting individuals we bump into, in need of good fun and conversation.

Favourite place to shop? In Dingle I go to La Boheme for clothes, Holden leather for bags and I buy all my hats from Kathleen McAuliffe. My jewellery is all Niamh Uacht and I love shawls and pashminas from local weaver Lisbeth Mulcahy.

In Paris I love all the independently owned boutiques in and about the Marais and Saint Germain.