ACROSS the globe you can stay in all manner of shelter.
There are converted prisons in Germany, in Sweden a Jumbo Stay in a converted Boeing 747 near Stockholm’s Arlanda Airport provides a novel overnight stay, and Lamb Island in Scotland, a private islet in the Firth of Forth, will give you a Robinson Crusoe experience.
Not to be left behind, Ireland’s range of accommodation is similarly impressive — from luxury lighthouses to crumbling castles, and from treehouses to abbeys.
Every medium-sized town has its main hotel, usually a three-star hostelry in the middle of town, which will provide you with an adequate, and sometimes exceptional, overnight stay. In addition, there are old inns, some dating back centuries, alongside B&Bs, self-catering cottages and even the odd converted lighthouse.
Down
Helen's Tower in ClandeboyeHelen’s Tower
Clandeboye Estate, Co. Down
www.irishlandmark.com
The rolling drumlin landscape of Co. Down boasts many fine demesnes, but none more impressive than the Clandeboye Estate. Even Alfred Lord Tennyson was greatly taken with the place, writing:
Helen's Tower, here I stand,
Dominant over sea and land.
Son’s love built me, and I hold
Mother’s love in letter’d gold.
The estate has swathes of woodland and pastureland for strolling through, many A-lister horticultural specimens, and loughs which are home to squadrons of swans, mallards and many species of geese.
The eponymous building in Tennyson’s poem, Helen’s Tower, is a Victorian structure of turrets, faux battlements and baronial decorations. It also boasts another literary connection, being named after a grand-daughter of Richard Brinsley Sheridan, the Dublin playwright.
The tower perched above the estate, is beautifully furnished and modernized inside, and is now available for rent — from £330 per weekend, sleeping two. But for that you get some of the finest views in Ireland.
Longford
Bramblewick House
www.facebook.com/BramblewickHouse
00 353 87 173 2844
Set on the outskirts of Drumlish, Bramblewick House offers accommodation within 8 km of The Cathedral Church of St Mel, Longford. Two self-contained ‘shepherd’s huts’ decked out for a self-catering break. All have a fully equipped kitchenette, a covered outdoor seating pod and shared benches/tables in the firepit area adjoins a garden with a barbecue area.
The county has one huge claim to fame: it is the home county of Oliver Goldsmith, in many people's opinion the author of the finest literary trio in the English language: the novel The Vicar of Wakefield, the play She Stoops To Conquer and the poem The Deserted Village. But no signs proclaim this as “Goldsmith country”, no heritage centres dedicated to the writer, no shops selling Goldsmith knickknacks. Just a peaceful, unchanging landscape, probably a bit closer to the idyll of old Ireland as she used to be.
Louth
Arrival into Carlingford HarourGhan House
www.ghanhouse.com/
Carlingford boasts two castles, a 17th century mint (that is, the money-making type of mint, not the sweetie), the ruins of a Dominican priory, and a harbour that the Vikings sailed into — which isn’t bad going for a town of around 1,400 souls.
It’s also home to the 'Headless Ghost of Taaffe's Castle' perhaps Nicholas Taaffe, 2nd Earl of Carlingford, who died at the Battle of the Boyne in July 1690, fighting for King James. He can be seen out and about when the evenings draw in. And he’ll have company. One Irish ghost expert claimed that the old Rectory on Dundalk Road, Carlingford, was 'the most haunted building in Ireland'.
None of that at Ghan House, however. I’ve stayed there a number of times and I didn’t even get a fright over the bill.
The 18th Georgian house is discreetly set behind high walls — some of which are the remnants of the old 12th century Dominican friary. There’s a romantic snug bar, perfect for a tryst, plus award-winning restaurant, intimate dining rooms, open fires and candles in the winter, aperitifs in the garden in the summer.
Double rooms from €210 per night, including breakfast
Clare
Ballyportry Castle
Ballyportry
www.ballyportry.ie
The 15th century tower house — what most sensible people would call a castle — is situated atop a small hill, set on five acres of the Burren near Shandangan Lough.
The castle is furnished in authentic castle style, using fabrics and materials in keeping with the late 15th century. The sheets and pillowcases are of linen, and wool blankets keep you cosy at night. All the furnishings reflect the time of late medieval Ireland, but with all mod cons too, totally reflecting the 21st, you’ll be relieved to hear. If you’re idea of roughing it is to turn the central heating to medium, then this is the place for you.
From the entrance a winding stone staircase leads up 6 floors to the bedrooms and the impressive Great Hall at the top of the Tower House. This has a 6 metre (or about 18 foot as they would have said back then) high ceiling of exposed oak roof beams, an open fireplace, a table for dining and couches for, well, carousing or whatever you’re having yourself.
The castle sleeps between 4 and 8 guests. The whole castle comes with the deal, that is it’s an exclusive let — all the rooms are at your disposal. A week’s stay is around the €2,950 mark.
Belfast
The Titanic Hotel in BelfastTitanic Hotel
Titanic Quarter
www.titanichotelbelfast.com/
Believe it or not, some Belfast residents are bored by the very mention of RMS Titanic.
The ship was for nearly a century Northern Ireland’s guilty secret. I went to school, college and university in the North, and not once — to the very best of my memory — was the Titanic ever mentioned. My brothers and sisters confirm that it was the same for them.
But then someone in the late 1990s must have stumbled across the old saying: if you’ve got skeletons in the cupboard you may as well dress them up and get them out dancing and shimmying for all they’re worth. Accordingly, the Titanic project was launched, and it has proved amazingly successful. So much so that disgruntled Belfast people began wearing T-shirts saying: “She sailed, she sank, get over it.”
But Titanic Belfast, set in a stunning architectural creation, has the whole lowdown.
Adjacent is the Titanic Hotel Belfast, located in the former Harland & Wolff headquarters where the RMS Titanic was designed. The boutique hotel features rooms with views of the great Harland & Wolff cranes, the historic slipways, and the dark River Lagan down which the Titanic slipped for its appointment with fate.
Dining options include The Wolff Grill and Drawing Office Two for all-day dining. You could even be sitting at a table where one designer just over a century ago perhaps said to his colleague: “Billy, do you think we’ve put in enough lifeboats?” To which the answer would have been. “Oh, aye, she’ll be grand.”
Double rooms for around £135 per night.
www.visitbelfast.com
Armagh
The Welcome InnThe Welcome Inn
Forkhill
The Welcome Inn in Forkhill, Co. Armagh has a world-wide reputation for traditional music. This is the home turf of South Armagh Comhaltas, as well as battalions of local musicians. This is the very backbone of the tradition — it’s all good stuff. But you only have to glance at the Welcome Inn's visitor book and you'll read of satisfied customers from as far afield as Estonia, Bangladesh, South Africa and so on. Even at the very height of the Troubles the reputation of the Welcome Inn spread far and wide. You can stay an apartment attached to the pub — one bedroom, lounge, kitchen.
The host is also the landlady of the bar, and she can arrange history walking tours of the village and the environs.
This is an exceptionally fine, mini-breakable stopover.
Kilkenny
Lawcus Farm Guesthouse
Kells, Stoneyford
lawcusfarmguesthouse.co
The Lawcus Farm Guesthouse is more of a lodge than anything else. Sitting alongside the meandering King’s River, you’ll be treated to trout for breakfast — and there really are fewer better ways of starting the day. The river is home to a cast of characters including otters, badgers, foxes, leaping salmon, kingfishers, swans and ducks, all living in the environs of Lawcus Farm. All you need do is sit out on the planked terrace, glass of far-from-where-you-were-rared Malbec 2019 in your hand, and wait. Most of them will pop by sooner or later.
Double rooms €140, singles €100
Tipperary
Lisheen Castle in TipperaryLisheen Castle
Thurles
www.lisheencastle.com
This is another castle which you rent out for your own exclusive use. At one time a forbidding fortress, it has been restored from its mediaeval ruins, and peacefully now overlooks rural, bucolic Tipperary.
This is a perfect cross between luxury accommodation and what you might call ‘an authentic castle experience’. Entering through a great oak door, you walk into the impressive hallway. The opulent dining room, receptions rooms and library all lead off from the main hall. Along the long corridor, a beautiful ash carved staircase leads up to the luxury ensuite bedrooms.
This touring vacation option currently being promoted includes the rental of Lisheen Castle and catering on a dinner & breakfast basis for one week. The castle offers tours that include the likes of Cliffs of Moher and Bunratty Castle. There’s a traditional Irish pub experience as one of the excursions, and musicians come to the castle to play.
The tour package includes the rental of the castle for the week, breakfast and dinner, wine, all entrance fees to the various sites and a guide to accompany the group each day. It’s subject to a minimum of 12 persons, so you need 11 mates or family members to occupy the 6 double ensuite rooms, and 2 single rooms
The cost is €2,195.00 per person, and there are
Waterford
Mountmelleray (or Mount Melleray) Abbey
Cappoquin
www.mountmellerayabbey.org
For a tranquil break, a retreat to Mount Melleray Abbey could be the very thing. This Cistercian monastery welcomes men and women. You'll be housed and fed, and you're free to join the monks throughout the day for prayer and Mass. Accommodation consists of your own simple but comfortable room, equipped with bed, a window looking out on the courtyard, and a wooden crucifix on the wall. The grounds of the abbey are set amidst the mist-covered Knockmealdown Mountains. The abbey's library has a collection of old Irish and medieval manuscripts.
The monks prefer you to stay for at least two nights, in an effort to prevent the place becoming a B&B. The cost? You can look up the tariff in James Joyce's short story The Dead:
"The table then spoke of Mount Melleray, how bracing the air was down there, how hospitable the monks were and how they never asked for a penny-piece from their guests."
The monks still don't ask a penny piece - you give what you can afford.
Availability varies greatly over the year. Phone the Guest Master on 00 353 58 54404 [email protected]. You can also pay in kind by working in the grounds or gardens by arrangement with the monks. No shirking, though.
Cork
Montenotte
Middle Glanmire Road, Cork
themontenottehotel.com/the-woodland-suites
May the forest be with you! Montenotte Hotel’s Woodland Suites are luxurious, tree-surrounded cabins featuring floor-to-ceiling windows, a freestanding bath. The organically shaped cabins nestle among the woodland greenery.
They’re not cheap, but the deal-clincher could be the freestanding bath with views across the River Lee.
Renting the woodland suite also gives you use in the main hotel, the swimming pool, sauna, steam room, jacuzzi, and fitness centre at Motion Health Club, and access to Panorama Restaurant and Glasshouse Bar.
The suites, are around £500 per night, inclusive of breakfast, a chauffeured buggy escort, a tree planting, sundowner cocktails in The Clubhouse, and access to all hotel facilities and amenities.
For further information or holiday inspiration click here ireland.com
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