Ireland's top hotels offer the last word in luxury, but only if you have very deep pockets - or plenty of charm, writes Róisín Ingle
Even the air smells different around the K Club, perfumed by tea roses, their fat petals bright in the afternoon sun. Our dirty white Peugeot - why oh why didn't we wash it? - looks out of place among the bright-green Porsches and baby Bentleys gleaming confidently in the car park.
A lost wallet means my companion and I have exactly seven cent to our names as we mount the steps to Michael Smurfit's golfing paradise, the country's most exclusive playground for the fabulously wealthy. The next morning I will pass Nick Faldo on them. I will grin in his direction. He will not crack a smile.
We are staying in the Viceroy suite, one of the most expensive in Ireland, at up to €3,100 a night, although that includes breakfast.
Once inside the painstakingly restored and extended mansion at the heart of the hotel it's hard not to gasp. The art. The tapestries. The chandeliers. And that's only the view from the staircase. Left alone in the suite, all soaring ceilings and Bang & Olufsen stereos, it takes five minutes of gawping before we can speak.
A small lobby leads into a sitting room lavishly furnished with antiques, from 18th-century gold-framed mirrors to oil paintings of former residents of the house. No two pieces of antique furniture are the same, according to the K Club, lending a grand eccentricity to the place. Champagne is on ice, fresh flowers are in every room and a huge bowl of fruit and chocolates is on the table.
The massive bedroom, home to a four-poster, includes a spacious sitting area for lolling about in your K Club dressing gown. Bay windows frame formal gardens, the pond, the fountain and one of the resort's two golf courses, where the Ryder Cup will be played in 2006. It's the kind of view you have to be dragged away from - Gary Lineker is on the premises for goodness sake - to deposit your bags in the walk-in dressing area.
Next you peek into the bathroom, with its marble floors and Italian murals. The taps are gold swans with water running from their beaks; on the double sink body oils and shampoo have been decanted into large glass bottles. No fiddly miniatures here. A yellow rubber duck sits in the Jacuzzi, a trademark of the hotel's affable chief executive, Ray Carroll, who likes to show guests that the K Club has a sense of humour.
Later, sampling the exquisite €125-a-head tasting menu at the Byerley Turk, one of the hotel's restaurants, we decide that a once-in-a-lifetime treat like this would definitely be worth saving for.
Like many of the country's top hotels, says Carroll, if the best suites are vacant they often upgrade people who are honeymooning or seem particularly deserving and charming when they check in. But in case you never get lucky, here's a quick peek inside some of Ireland's most luxurious suites, which have hosted everyone from Bush to Bowie. (And if you can't afford them, just remember all hotel rooms look the same when you're asleep.)
Presidential Suite
Dromoland Castle, Co Clare
George Bush and his string vests were the most recent visitors, but Bono, Robert Redford, Demi Moore and Bill Clinton have lived like landed gentry here, admiring the suite's collection of antique encyclopedias and Staffordshire dogs. The sitting area is a long room overlooking a lake and the 18th green of the golf course. You'll find a small bar for drinks parties and a guest bathroom before you walk through a corridor to the bedroom. A canopied bed and seating area complete with chess set are beside a bay window that spans the width of the room. An archway leads into fitted wardrobes with a Hollywood-style dressing area. The bathroom has a walk-in "rain" shower, and at night chocolates and poetry are placed on guests' pillows. Complimentary upgrades from cheaper rooms happen more regularly than you might imagine. The suite costs up to €1,270 a night.
Presidential Suite
The Westbury, Dublin
Britney Spears loved this €1,500-a-night room so much when she stayed here earlier in the summer that she flew back to Dublin from a gig in Lisbon. The recently refurbished suite sports tasteful aubergine and check furnishings, set off by pale wood and elegant artwork. What really make this suite, though - apart from the flat-screen television above the bath - are the gym and sauna off the bedroom. Stars such as the Eagles and the Gallagher brothers like the Westbury because the underground car park means they can get to their rooms without showing their faces. And it's just down the road from Lillies Bordello.
The Penthouse
The Clarence, Dublin
If only the walls of this penthouse could talk. Its rock-star pedigree - the hotel is owned by Bono and Edge of U2 - large, hot-tub-equipped terrace and panoramic view of the city regularly attract the likes of David Bowie and the lead singer of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Anthony Kiedis, who recently took the whole pad for himself, at €2,100 a night, excluding breakfast. There's a contemporary-apartment feel throughout the two bedrooms, two living rooms and dining room, which are all dressed up with funky suede furniture and art by Guggi, Bono's best mate. At the top of a spiral staircase is a long loft-style party room with a bar, a baby grand piano and a multimedia system that allows you to browse CDs, films, the Internet and almost every radio station in the world through a flat-screen TV. The Penthouse caters for simple tastes too: we spotted Jelly Babies and Pringles in the Shaker-style kitchen.
Presidential Suite
Four Seasons Hotel, Dublin
This suite is so posh it doesn't even have wallpaper, just silk wall coverings, which would be murder to wash. The small lobby features a collection of old editions of Dickens, a grand dining room overlooks the RDS show grounds and there's a pantry where staff make your dinner. The shamrock-embossed bed sheets are made from Egyptian cotton - just the way former guest Justin Timberlake likes them - the bath is deep enough to swim in and the Bulgari toiletries come in large bottles. All this for €2,200 a night, excluding breakfast.
Or if that's too rich for your blood . . .
With a four-poster bed, a stunning lake view and a loo designed like a throne, the Red Room at Castle Leslie, in Co Monaghan, was good enough for Paul McCartney and Heather Mills on their wedding night. On the downside, the room is said to be haunted, but on a special occasion the €175-a-person price tag - breakfast is included - won't scare you as much as the others might.
