LIAM STEBBINGVISITS RENVYLE HOUSE HOTEL, CO GALWAY
WHEN THE Americans invaded Iraq in 2003, in a mixture of tanks and other armoured vehicles, they raced across the desert to Baghdad unhindered by significant resistance. The speed of their advance was a surprise, particularly to people more used to the Americans who invade the west of Ireland each summer, in a mixture of rented Nissan Tiidas and Kia Rios, in which they crawl from the Cliffs of Moher to Connemara, hindered by having to drive on the left-hand side of winding roads using manual gears. When you're stuck behind a dozen of them, you could swear they never make it past 50km/h.
So it was with relief the other day that we arrived, almost five hours after leaving Co Clare, at Renvyle House Hotel, set on 80 secluded hectares (200 acres) of Co Galway that you find by turning off the main road in Letterfrack and driving until you reach what feels like the end of the world, with the sea almost surrounding you, at the tip of Renvyle Peninsula.
The car park is lined with Audis, Mercedes and even the odd Porsche, but such flashness stops at the hotel's golf-bag-and-fishing-rod- cluttered porch, which leads into a lobby so cosy and comfortable that some families bag a spot for the day by one of the two peat fires.
We had booked at the last minute, having seen an offer for two nights' B&B for two adults and two under-12s, with dinner one evening, for €649 - not cheap, but we had been worn down by the relentless rain of August and wanted a last hurrah before the new school year. Lots of other people must have seen the offer, too, for the hotel was brimming over with families.
The hotel seemed a little surprised by the number of guests it had ended up with, for as we were checking in a slightly anxious receptionist asked if our children, aged 10 and seven, would like to sign up for the children's dinner in the playroom, as the dining room was running out of tables for four that evening. Our tweenager wrinkled her nose in disgust at the thought of eating pizza and pasta with a roomful of toddlers. Instead we agreed to eat early, so somebody else could have our table at 8.30pm.
Our accommodation - a triple with a fold-out bed that the hotel offered to us for €150 less than its advertised rate, as it had run out of family rooms - was in the newer half of the hotel, away from the charm of the main house but with a view of the sea if we ignored the roof of the kitchen below our window.
It was cosy and comfortable, with a spacious bathroom that included a sign to explain that we shouldn't worry about the colour of the water, which has a brown tint because of the peat it runs through. Bathing in brown water is one thing, but drinking it is another, so the hotel leaves mineral water in the rooms - although only two small bottles for four of us (and, we thought, only towels enough for three).
But those are minor irritations. This is one of the few hotels we've stayed at where all the activities are free and where the public areas are nice enough to spend the day in. Renvyle has a nine-hole golf course, a trout lake, rowing boats, kayaks, tennis courts, a croquet lawn, a snooker room and a heated outdoor pool.
It's worth doing a few laps to work up an appetite for dinner. We had crab salad followed by carrot soup with good home-made bread, then local turbot. The children had gamily mature medallions of beef served with mashed potato and vegetables (preceded by a luxuriously buttery leek-and-potato soup and followed by dessert from the grown-up menu).
It is impressive, satisfying food, but it is not particularly cheap - four courses normally cost €45 for adults - so on our second night we ate instead in the bar, where, for €15 each, we had the best fish and chips we can remember: two large breaded fillets served with so many chips that the meal came on a platter. One portion would easily have fed two of us. (We ate our feast in the lounge, whose fireplaces and wing chairs make you feel as if you're living in a game of Cluedo.)
The generosity continues at breakfast, where you can top off cereal, fruit salad, yogurt and more home-baked bread with a full Irish or, more temptingly, eggs Benedict, plaice, kippers or even lamb's liver. And that's without mentioning croissants so addictive that, as soon as a new platter of them is set down, hordes descend on the buffet table. You'd be a fool not to fill up for the day.
If there is one, mightily annoying, drawback to staying at Renvyle it's that charging food or drink to your room attracts a 12.5 per cent service charge. You quickly learn to pay on the spot rather than be landed with the extra - which would be almost €20 on a €150 family dinner, apparently for no more than typing your room number into the till.
Do away with that irksome policy and Renvyle would, for us, be close to perfect.
WhereRenvyle, Co Galway, 095-43511, www.renvyle.com.
WhatFour-star hotel in arts-and-crafts-style country house on 80 hectares of coastal parkland and lake.
Rooms68, a mixture of single, double, triple and family rooms, plus suites.
Best rates2B&B1D €255pp, 3B&B2D €393pp, 5B&B4D €655pp midweek until mid-September, but telephone for last-minute deals. Website also has 3BB2D for a bargain €177pp midweek in November.
Restaurant and barAward-winning head chef Tim O'Sullivan oversees the restaurant. Food also served in bar and lounge.
Child-friendlinessCots, high chairs, baby-listening service, playroom, playground, children's films.
AmenitiesFree golf, fishing, boating, tennis, croquet, snooker, swimming.