De-stress for less at Ireland's 5-star spas

With intense competition for your custom, top pampering destinations have cut their prices. PHYL CLARKElets you know what to expect while DEIRDRE MCQUILLANheads for pioneering Cloona, Ireland's original health retreat

North

LOUGH ERNE GOLF RESORT

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Lough Erne Golf Resort, in Co Fermanagh

Enniskillen, Co Fermanagh, 048-66323230, loughernegolfresort.com.

Old-world heritagemeets new-world luxury at Northern Ireland's first five-star hotel. The resort is certainly a golfer's dream, but there's much here for the non-golfer, too, in its elegantly designed traditional interior. Quality and comfort are top of the list here, along with professional but unobtrusive service. There are stunning views from almost any vantage point on the resort, which sits on a 250-hectare peninsula. We stayed at one of the pretty turreted lodges, from where you can order shopping, a chef or a butler or avail of a chauffeur to whisk you up to the beautiful Catalina restaurant, at the main hotel, for a meal to remember by Noel McMeel and his team. Retire to the Blaney Bar to sample the selection of 101 Irish whiskies – but not all at once, please.

My experienceat the Thai Spa left me planning a return trip before I'd even left. The name is apt, for this is the real deal, with all therapists trained in their native Thailand to perform authentic treatments within interiors decorated with furnishings imported from Thailand. My traditional massage was a wonderful experience, the benefits of which I still felt days later. The stunning swimming pool is also a highlight.

Other activitiesinclude fly-fishing on the castle lough, where the resident instructor will share angling tips, and if you fancy seeing Lough Erne in all its glory from the air, there are helicopter and seaplane tours. Take your nearest and dearest – and all the credit.

Two nights’ BB with one evening meal in the Catalina restaurant costs from £149.50 (€166) per person sharing

South

FOTA ISLAND RESORT

Co Cork, 021-4883700, fotaisland.ie.

If you're lookingfor something to please all ages, Fota Island Resort is hard to beat. The decor is a million miles from the brash and bright interiors of too many Irish hotels, with their overuse of polished marble and bland neutrals. Fota's warm and solid ambience uses rich dark woods and curved stone walls, balanced to terrific effect by rich purple and burnt-red soft furnishings. There's more than a hint of Morocco going on here, and the success of the look lies in the brave decision to see it fully through in all the public areas. Soft lighting adds the finishing touch to an interior that is the perfect foil for any inclement weather outside.

Foodies arein for a treat at the fine-dining Cove restaurant, where chef Neil Foster's passionate take on local produce is outstanding. There's also the Fota restaurant for less formal dining, or just curl up with your book by the fire in the Amber Lounge, which serves bar food.

While you taketo the spa, himself can play a round of golf on one of the three courses, or learn to play at the academy. Or he can take the kids to the wildlife park, where they can see all sorts of creatures from the five continents in a natural environment.

Now back toyou and the spa. I advise leaving yourself plenty of time to indulge. The thermal suite has the most fantastic heated rocking beds. I spent a happy hour wondering where I could buy one and where I could fit it in my house. The hydrotherapy pool is a serious one, with intense jets that target every imaginable part of the body. (My favourite massaged the soles of my feet.) A "walking river" uses currents and a stone surface to revitalise. There is also a separate large swimming pool.

To complement itsisland setting, the spa features the Italian Comfort Zone range, with its natural and marine elements. The signature Tranquil Touch treatment, which costs €150, could be the perfect answer if you can't decide between a massage (I want it) and a facial (I need it), as it includes both, along with a specialised eye treatment.

One night's B&B, with a honey-milk bath each, costs €160 for two people; one night's BB with a choice of a facial or selected massage costs €220 for two people (not available Saturday)

East

MONART DESTINATION SPA

The Still, Enniscorthy,

Co Wexford, 053-9238999, monart.ie

One of thecountry's few destination spas, Monart is a Condé Nast Hot List pick, and Forbes magazine named it one of the top 10 destinations in the world – and all despite our weather. The house of Monart dates back to 1740, and as you walk through the glass corridor that joins the old house to the new an invisible fairy seems to collect all your worldly worries and take charge of them during your stay.

The stunninglandscaping of the Mary Reynolds-designed gardens marries seamlessly with the sympathetic colour palette inside. Monart embraces the shades of Irish nature, using them in a way that makes you reconsider green, grey and brown, and wonder how you ever thought them drab. What seemed like a perfectly straightforward sage green on the wall of my bedroom had changed to a peaty brown by evening light, and by the next morning it seemed to have more of a khaki hue. These are the kind of musings you have at Monart, and very therapeutic they are, too. By the end of my stay, besides wanting to repaint my house, I also wanted to dig up my garden and replace it with soothing Celtic swirls, moss- covered mounds and the odd bridge.

The service, food and spa are perfection, the latter being pleasingly light and airily fresh. The central area has information on how to get the most from the suite, along with willing therapists to give a hand and foot massage on request. Pevonia is the botanical range used in the treatments here, with a high percentage of active ingredients, and bespoke prescriptive facials, too. Take someone you really love – or just yourself.

Two nights' B&B costs €165 per person sharing midweek or €185pps at weekends

West

THE G HOTEL

Wellpark, Galway, 091-865200, theghotel.ie

Girlie and glamorous, the G Hotel sits like a doll's house for grown-ups on the outskirts of Galway. The perfect getaway for an indulgent weekend, its dramatic and romantic interior will allow the little princess in you to come out to play.

The by-now-famousinterior by Philip Treacy earned the hotel a spot as one of the top three in the world for ambience and design in last year's Condé Nast Traveller's Gold List, and that was no mean feat. But it's the combination of high-end design and west-of-Ireland hospitality that makes this hotel a winner. Truth be told, there is not much of a view from the G, so Treacy cleverly diverts our eye inward from the moment of arrival, with an ubercool reception of black-glass walls framing an exotic aquarium and a sculptural white floating "wall" that turns out to be the concierge post.Walk along the raspberry-pink carpet to find three lounges overlooked by a mezzanine at bedroom level, all presided over by a gigantic mirror-ball candelabra. Add oversized gilt mirrors, Alice in Wonderland chairs and golden doorways for a theme carried through to the Metz restaurant.

If all thissounds OTT, you're right, but it's also very comfortable and great fun – and you haven't even been to the spa, which, unusually, is on the upper two floors. Stone, linen and glass predominate in dark neutrals in a beautiful space. The luxurious Espa range includes "super active" facials. The relaxation area, which overlooks a Zen garden, uses patterns and scent to further enhance your mood. More? The pool area's black-slate finish is dominated by a cream linen mobile comprising abstract geese, which you gaze up at from the caressing water. It's beyond bliss.

Two nights'B&B with an Espa Renew treatment costs €275 per person sharing PC

No pampering at Cloona, but its fans love the results

CLUAIN EACH, in old Irish, means Meadows of the Steed, and it is said that, long ago, there was horse racing in the flat meadows of this lovely part of west Co Mayo. Located a few kilometres outside Westport, the area’s valleys and boreens, ancient oak woodlands and riverside walks in the foothills of Croagh Patrick are among the most scenic in the country. For the past 40 years, however, Cloona has taken on an entirely different meaning, associated not with exertion and competition but with rest and restoration.

When the pioneering Sonia Kelly set up Ireland’s first health centre, in 1973, in a converted l8th-century woollen mill in Cloona, her ideas about health tourism were ahead of their time. Today its five-day residential “cleansing detox programme”, unique in Ireland, remains true to its founding principles and continues to thrive under the guidance of her son, Dhara, who took over in 1985 with his own progressive ideas about diet and health.

Effusive comments in the guest book and repeat business of 70 to 80 per cent are testimony to its continuing popularity.

People come for various reasons. Many, such as teachers, are professionals, stressed urbanites or simply those who need time for reflection, maybe at a crossroads in life. It has attracted politicians such as the British MP Clare Short and Máire Geoghegan-Quinn, who was remembered locally for the 24-hour security her visit required when she was minister for justice.

On my visit, one girl recalled as a teenager her mother “bouncing in the door” after a week at Cloona Health Retreat; she later decided to go herself. Though often mothers and daughters or friends come together, people benefit more by coming alone. Short described it as “like a retreat without the religion”.

At Cloona there are no beauty treatments, no facials, no manicures, no Jacuzzis, no pampering. Guests don’t wander around all day in bathrobes, drifting from one treatment to the next. Instead the programme concentrates on body and mind in conditions that some might describe as monastic but are also companionable and fun. The bedrooms are simple and the diet strict, but what Cloona lacks in luxury is more than compensated for by the excellence of the food prepared by Rose and Isabelle Kelly, the commitment and skill of its team and the very real results it generates.

Each day has a fixed structure. Breakfast – one grapefruit, two oranges and wheatgrass juice – is followed by a yoga session from 10.45am to 12.30pm. Lunch – soup and salads – at 1pm is followed at 2pm by a brisk hour-long walk led by Dhara, on a different route each day. Between 3pm and 6pm you can take hour-long treatments such as deep-tissue massage, reflexology or shiatsu – or just use it as free time. At 6pm there’s a fruit meal – perhaps one banana, two kiwis, an apple and five prunes – and at 7pm you have a sauna, followed by a massage.

Drinking the spring water – at least three pints a day – is par for the course.

I have to confess an interest here, for I’ve been a fan of Cloona for a long time, one of the many repeat visitors who feel rejuvenated and reinvigorated after the week. I leave every time full of good intentions and with a looser waistband. On a recent visit I was one of nine people – eight female and one male – on the programme, which since last year has included wheatgrass and a juice-only day on Wednesday because, says Dhara, “the value is huge and I wanted to bring people further away from their comfortable familiarity”.

There was much talk about how we were going to cope on Wednesday, but in the event nobody felt hungry, and the juices were delicious. “God, we’re living on grass and grapefruit!” joked one woman as we downed our regulation shot of the intensely green juice one morning.

People had their own highs and lows and fluctuating energy levels. Some missed coffee, others bread, and there was incessant talk about food, favourite restaurants, books, wine and the strange dreams most of us experienced.

Yoga with the lively and sparkling Catriona Flanagan, from Galway, was a high point each day, as were the walks – all the more rewarding along quiet country roads dense with the smell of gorse in the spring sunshine, with everything coming into bloom. Views of Clew Bay were breathtaking, and the stillness of the early morning provided a calm start to each day.

There are surprises for newcomers, such as what reflexology can reveal, the absence of hunger pangs when most expected and how balance in movement can improve not only posture but even the way in which you walk.

The final meal before departure, held at lunchtime on Friday, is always eagerly awaited and includes butter (!) and crackers (!).

As our group disbanded, everyone felt brighter, with a lightness of mood no holiday could better. "I get head space here I get nowhere else – amazing – repeat visit even better than the first" was one comment in the visitor book. "Thanks for a week of renewal and solace" wrote another. Mens sano in corpore sano.

No wonder the place becomes addictive.

• A five-day stay at Cloona costs €690 for a single en-suite room. cloona.ie DMcQ

5 more spa deals if you’re looking for a getaway around Ireland

Carton House package: €220

Stately Carton House, just outside Maynooth, Co Kildare, is offering a midweek spa deal of two nights’ BB with one evening meal and one of a choice of spa treatments. Options range from “chakra balancing” massages to facials and body scrubs. The package costs €220 per person, based on two sharing. 01-5052000, cartonhouse.com.

Dromoland Castle: €175

Dromoland Castle, in Co Clare, is offering a Spa Bliss package that sounds like great value. For €175 per adult you get bed and breakfast plus a spa treatment, a stint in the hydrotherapy pool and a healthy spa lunch. The offer runs until March 30th. 061-368144, dromoland.ie.

Ritz-Carlton: from €145

The day-spa package at the Ritz-Carlton Powerscourt, outside Enniskerry, in Co Wicklow, includes use of its Swarovski crystal-lit pool, a warm clove-oil full-body massage, a healthy spa lunch and a winter rehydrator facial. The offer costs €145 midweek or €165 at weekends. 01-2748888, ritzcarlton.com.

Marriott Galway: from €135

In Galway, the Spa at Courtyard Marriott has an offer running until the end of February that is designed to “release impurities, eliminate toxins and stimulate blood and energy flow”. It comes in the form of exfoliations, body wraps, scalp rubs and aromatherapy massages, and it costs €135 per person. 091-568750, thespa.ie.

Castleknock Hotel: €115

If there’s a gang of you feeling the effects of the party season, Castleknock Hotel and Country Club, in Dublin, has a Girls Night In package with a four-course dinner, B&B, mini facial and half-hour anti-stress treatment. It costs €115pps. 01-6406300, castleknockhotel.com.

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