County South_tipperary - Accommodation

In the middle of the small town, impressive gates open into a long forecourt, at the end of which is the splendid red-brick facade of this former Archbishop's Palace, built c. 1731 and designed by Sir Edward Lovett Pearce, architect of the old Parliament House in Dublin. I had wondered whether a town setting would prove noisy, but the hotel is set well back from the traffic in a peaceful, sheltering garden. The pillared entrance hall is imposing. Panelled in pine, painted a delicate apricot, it has twin gray-marble fireplaces facing each other, flanked by comfortable settees. Though in a lovely historic setting, this is thoroughly professional, efficiently-run hotel, with helpful friendly girls at the reception desk.

The bathroom was simple but vast. There was an enormous bed, its high headpiece painted white and carved wih garlands and flambeaux, from which green and white draperies hung down. The view, morning and evening, was magnificent: the Rock of Cashel, crowned with its ruined cathedral, castle, chapel, and tall tower, framed in the weeping ash and copper-beech trees of the neatly tended wide gardens. A pair of gnarled old mulberry trees on the smooth lawns may be even older than the Palace, for they are said to have been planted in 1702 for Queen Anne's coronation.

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