The Printed Edit · N° 04
An Ireland honeymoon, in print.
Deborah Nunez, Editor
Rooms where the fire is already lit. Country houses you don't want to leave in the morning. This is the honeymoon week we book for our own friends.
“Our most-saved itinerary by readers planning their first trip together.”
Couples planning a honeymoon or a quiet, intimate week away.
Wicklow · Kilkenny · Cork · Kenmare · Sheen Falls
The mistake most honeymoon itineraries make is ambition. Two people who have just spent a year planning a wedding do not need a fourth country house in five days. They need three, with fires lit and dinner downstairs.
This edition is built on stillness. Two nights minimum, three where it matters, and drives short enough that the afternoon is still yours when you arrive.
It is also honest about cost. Irish country-house hospitality at this level is expensive, and there are three places in this book where we think the money is genuinely well spent and several where it is not.
Deborah Nunez, Editor
As printed, p. 3
13 printed pages. Tap any page to read it full size.
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Volume I · Seven days, three houses, nothing rushed · 13 pages
I
p. 5Why a honeymoon week should have fewer beds than days.
A country house takes an evening to open up to you. The first night is arrival. The second is the one you will remember. Book anything for a single night and you have paid for an arrival and left before the house gave you anything back.
Three houses over seven nights. Two, two and three, with the three at the end.
II
p. 6An hour from the airport, and a world away from it.
Do not drive west on the first day. Wicklow is forty minutes from Dublin airport and it hides the fact that you have just crossed an ocean.
A walk before dinner, an early night, and the whole trip starts on the right footing.
III
p. 7Ballyfin, and what a genuinely great Irish house feels like.
There is one house in Ireland that operates at the level Americans imagine when they picture an Irish castle stay, and it is not a castle. Ballyfin is a Regency house with twenty rooms and a staff who know your name by lunch on the first day.
Two nights, and do not plan anything for the second.
IV
p. 8Three nights in Kenmare, and the drive that gets you there.
The final three nights should be in one place, and Kenmare is the right one. It is a real town rather than a resort, and the good hotels sit at the edge of it rather than replacing it.
Drive the Beara instead of the Ring if the Ring is full. It is the better road and almost nobody is on it.
V
p. 9Four rooms, booked before you fly.
Ireland's best dining is small-room dining, which means it is booked out. Four reservations made in advance will do more for a honeymoon week than any upgrade.
One long lunch is worth more than one more dinner. Ballymaloe, if you are anywhere near Cork.
VI
p. 10What the money actually buys in Ireland, and what it does not.
The most valuable things in this country are rarely the ones being sold. A house that lets you sit in it all afternoon is worth more than a spa menu, and Irish hospitality is not the same thing as service.
Read both essays before you book. They will change what you spend on.
The stays we would book ourselves for this edition, and the one line that explains why each is here.
The best house in Ireland, and priced like it. Two nights, no plans.
River rooms, and a walk from the door into the national park.
Better than its category suggests. Good for the Ballymaloe lunch.
The best first morning in the country, with the Rock in the window.
The opening night. Terrace, valley, and forty minutes from the airport.
A honeymoon week in Ireland works when it has fewer moving parts than you think it should. Three houses, four reservations, one empty day, and a fire lit by four in the afternoon.
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TL;DR. A Quiet Romance. An Ireland honeymoon, in print. Couples planning a honeymoon or a quiet, intimate week away.
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