A day or so before one of our colleagues in the hospitality judging business launched their latest title with a broadside against falling standards of housekeeping in Irish hotels, we just happened to be in Dingle, staying in two of the town's best-known destinations: Elmlagh House and Castlewood House.
You can see from our notes, offered here as they were written on an iPad when we were still staying in the houses, what we thought of the two houses and, above all, what we thought of their standards of housekeeping. Critical judgement, clearly, is a very broad church!
Just how much work does it take to maintain a house at the pitch-perfect level that Brian and Helen manage at Dingle's iconic Castlewood House? Every time you visit the house looks freshly painted: all of it! Everything gleams: your breakfast fork, the windows, the sofa, the bathroom sinks and showers and baths. And there is, then, the tactility of the towels and the throws, the lushness of the drapes, the soft yield underfoot of the carpets, the fact that everything is in the right place, making for an aureolae of feng shui. It's dazzling, in the way a great virtuoso musician dazzles with the skill, in the way a great cook dazzles with the final plated piece of perfect cooking.
We don't know how they do it, but we are glad they do it, and do it so well. Of course, we actually do know how they do it: they are consummately professional, and consummate professionals, both with a long history working their way through the hospitality business towards their triumph in Castlewood. The mixture of their skills is almost dumbfounding: 2 x 2 = 22, it seems to us. The result is one of the best places to stay in Ireland, and one of the very best breakfasts you can eat, not just in Ireland but, we reckon, that you could eat anywhere in the world. Castlewood is special, a perfect collusion of a couple's skills, and their execution.
(PICTURES 1-4 - THE CASTLEWOOD BREAKFAST)
There is something extraordinarily gratifying about Emlagh. Its a place where everything conspires to gratify your senses - the tactility of the tableware, the sweep of the dining room windows and their view out onto Dingle Bay, the gorgeous art works that dot the house and which ache to emulate the drama of the restless light that plays on the hills above the town. It's a house that spells comfort, as you help yourself to a DOG (Dingle Original Gin) and tonic and sink into a mercilessly comfortable armchair. The only hard bit is not falling asleep as you sit there, in the lap of luxury.
The cooking amplifies this feel good factor, with beautifully realised breads and egg dishes, superb French toast, robust bacon and sausages from Ashe's of Annascaul. And the furnishings are restrained luxe, as you sink into the sofas and beds swallow you up in capacious rooms. It is one of the great houses, confident, grand but not showoffish. Every time you come back it's where you want to be and, for many people, in a town with fine standards of hospitality, it is the only place to be.
(PICTURES 5-6 - EMLAGH HOUSE)
