The 10 Best Ireland Luxury Hotels

The Best of Ireland: Castle Stays, Literary Dublin, and Irish Luxury

Ireland has more castle ruins than almost any country in the world, a remarkable number of which have been converted into truly spectacular estates. The best luxury resorts in Ireland include properties where falconry is a morning activity and afternoon lake fishing comes with the room.

County Mayo has one castle estate that dates back to 1228. Further west, Connemara's converted properties look out over river valleys where you can spend an entire afternoon meandering without seeing another person. The drive from Dublin takes about three hours and covers enough ground to make the west feel like a different country entirely.

While in Dublin, don't neglect learning about the city's literary pride. The city takes language seriously enough to have produced four Nobel laureates in literature, which is more per capita than almost any other country on earth. You feel that tradition in the way its pubs conduct conversation as deliberately as universities do. A literary pub crawl lets you see the neighborhoods that produced more serious writing per square mile than almost anywhere else in the Anglosphere.