The Drawing Room HourNotebook No 76October 2025
West Clare from a window, before the wind picks up.
Collected by Deborah. Read her editorial perspective
In the morning room at Doonbeg, before nine, we take in West Clare. We look straight down the dunes, past tall, dew-laden grasses, to the Atlantic, whose rhythmic sigh registers through the old glass. This is when we watch the light change, before the day’s usual bluster.
Adare
We once traversed the golf course without clubs, tracing the contours Greg Norman designed. This allowed us to note the subtle shifts in elevation and the land’s decline toward the sea. Walking revealed a practical measure of the course’s excellence that play itself sometimes obscures.
For a grounded experience, stay in the lodge wing. Eat one dinner a short drive away in Lahinch.
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The Ireland Edit Way
Cut the itinerary in half, then cut it again. The letter we send before every first visit.
Every hotel change costs you half a day. Luxury, in Ireland, is staying put.
Six questions we apply before booking any room in Ireland. The November test, the dinner-twice test, the landscape-over-room test.
To understand Ireland, stop looking at the castles and start looking at the kitchen table.
From the notebook
Collected notes. A few times each season.