The Notebook
Hotels, from the notebook.
Everything we have filed under hotels: what we saw, where we stayed, and what we would do differently.
Hotels
Entry No. 01
The Drawing Room Hour
Cashel Palace, the garden suite in October
A small house, a long bath, and the Rock through the window when the rain clears.
Entry No. 02
The Drawing Room Hour
Adare Manor, the hour before dinner
The drawing rooms at six, when the house exhales and the guests have not yet come down.
Entry No. 03
The Drawing Room Hour
Sheen Falls, the second night
When the staff stop asking and the room starts to know you.
Entry No. 04
The Drawing Room Hour
The folded blanket at Ballyfin
What nobody mentions about the room, and why it is the point.
Entry No. 05
The Drawing Room Hour
Mount Stewart, the walled garden in early summer
A National Trust house on the shore of Strangford Lough, with a microclimate warm enough to grow what nowhere else in Ireland can.
Entry No. 06
The Drawing Room Hour
Ashford Castle, when the lake goes still
Eight hundred years on Lough Corrib, and the hour that earns the trip.
Entry No. 07
The Drawing Room Hour
Rooms where the windows stay open to the sea
Ballynahinch Castle, in the small hours.
Entry No. 08
The Drawing Room Hour
Hotels for weather
What you actually want when the rain sets in for the day.
Entry No. 09
The Drawing Room Hour
The Merrion on a quiet Tuesday
What the drawing rooms feel like when no one is checking in.
Entry No. 10
The Drawing Room Hour
Adare Manor after the leaves turn
The week the village goes quiet and the manor opens up.
Entry No. 11
The Drawing Room Hour
Cashel Palace, the first morning
Breakfast under the Rock, before anyone else is up.
Entry No. 12
The Drawing Room Hour
Mount Juliet for a long weekend
When you want golf, food and a fire, on the same estate.
Entry No. 13
The Drawing Room Hour
The K Club after the rain
The Liffey course in the half-hour the sun comes back.
Entry No. 14
The Drawing Room Hour
Sheen Falls when the river rises
Kenmare in November, the falls running full.
Entry No. 15
The Drawing Room Hour
Powerscourt, from the upper terrace
The Sugar Loaf framed exactly the way the architects meant it.
Entry No. 16
The Drawing Room Hour
The Shelbourne, properly
How to stay in the room everyone walks past.
Entry No. 17
The Drawing Room Hour
Dromoland in February
When the lake is still and the dining room is half full.
Entry No. 18
The Long Evening of Summer
Lough Eske on a long evening
Donegal in June, the lake taking the light.
Entry No. 19
The Drawing Room Hour
Kilkea with the fires lit
Kildare in the dark months, a castle that takes you in.
Entry No. 20
The Drawing Room Hour
The Europe Hotel, the third morning
Killarney's lake from a balcony, taken slowly.
Entry No. 21
The Drawing Room Hour
Carton House for two quiet nights
The Fairmont rebuild, settled in at last.
Entry No. 22
The Drawing Room Hour
Ballyfin, the third evening
When the house finally stops feeling like a museum.
Entry No. 23
The Drawing Room Hour
The Bushmills Inn after dark
Antrim in October, the gas lamps and a peat fire.
Entry No. 24
The Drawing Room Hour
Ballygally Castle with the sea in the window
The Antrim coast, from a window cut into stone.
Entry No. 25
The Drawing Room Hour
The Merchant in the Cathedral Quarter
Belfast's grandest room, used the way it was meant to be.
Entry No. 26
The Drawing Room Hour
Grand Central Belfast as a base
The view from the twenty-third floor, after the city goes quiet.
Entry No. 27
The Drawing Room Hour
Doonbeg, the morning room
West Clare from a window, before the wind picks up.
Entry No. 28
The Drawing Room Hour
Portmarnock by the sea
The Jameson family house, then the resort, then the dunes.
Entry No. 29
The Drawing Room Hour
Waterford Castle on its own island
Sixteenth century, Norman and accessible only by ferry.
Entry No. 30
The Drawing Room Hour
Clontarf Castle for one Dublin night
A castle inside the city limits, twelve minutes from the airport.
Entry No. 31
The Drawing Room Hour
Markree Castle in Sligo
Yeats country, with the Cooper family still on the door.
Entry No. 32
The Drawing Room Hour
Ballyseede in Tralee
The drawing room dogs and the late dinner.
Entry No. 33
The Drawing Room Hour
Cabra Castle in the banquet hall
Cavan, the eighteenth century kept honestly.
From the notebook
Editorial itineraries from Ireland.
Collected notes. A few times each season.