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Ireland: Cashel rocks

OFF BEAT: Kilgraney House

It was handily placed across the street from glorious old Duiske Abbey. Inside, the band was trying out a couple of Westlife tunes appropriate to the nuptials.

It was a "soft" day and we were sheltering in a huge well-stocked second-hand bookshop that was as surprising a discovery as finding Duiske, once Ireland's largest Cistercian Abbey in such a small village as Graiguenamnagh (pronounced greg-na-mana).

Duiske is named after the Black Water, which cascades down into the River Barrow. On the outside it is grey and sombre, inside its is whitewashed bright with original features from the 14th century, including a high relief carving of the Knight of Duiske in chainmail reaching for his sword.

The rain had stopped, so we crossed the six-arch stone bridge for a constitutional along the heron-haunted Barrow. Lovely green, dripping County Kilkenny is a soothing place, easy to speed through - along with neighbouring Carlow offering a meandering necklace of waterways with towpaths and lots of pubs pretending to be hardware shops, or is it the other way round?

Atmospheric 

Check out atmospheric O'Shea's in Borris - it stocks Guinness alternative O'Hara's black stout from Carlow Craft Brewery - but don't trip over the sacks of horse feed!

What I like about Ireland is its constant ability to surprise. We were staying in Kilgraney House near Bagenalstown, Co Carlow, an off-the-beaten charming Georgian farmhouse with shaggy dogs, croquet lawn, herb gardens, tranquil vistas, sophisticated home cooking and even a spa.

Kilgraney's restorers and escapees from hectic Dublin, Brian Leech and Martin Marley are, by profession, designers, whose work spells in the far east have resulted in décor and artifacts far removed from standard Irish country house style. Perhaps our room was a little offbeat cool, but it wasn't cold chic.

Marmelade here is not the standard bitter Seville orange stuff, either. Inclusion of passionfruit, flecking it with black seeds, gives it something extras.

Brian and Martin, who close the place to guests in winter, have gained from featuring in the trendy Mr and Mrs Smith hotel guides. We were staying with them through the prestigious Ireland's Blue Books guide, which offers an utterly distinctive mix of hotels and fine restaurants.

We had kicked off our Irish jaunt at one of their finest properties - the Merrion Hotel on uppercrust old Merrion Street. This is a conversion of five huge Georgian townhouses, one of which was the birthplace of the Duke of Wellington.

MUNSTER: Rock of Cashel

This is appropriate because, staying there you are a stroll away from the Irish capital's cultural sights - among them Trinity College (don't miss the Book Of Kells, the illuminated gospel manuscript dating from around 800AD), the National Gallery and the National Library, where we enjoyed a superb exhibition on WB Yeats, and the wondrous Georgian squares rivalled only by Edinburgh and Bath.

But let's not forget another attraction of Dublin - the pubs, now non-smoking, of course, but retaining their character nevertheless. Many of the best are in the streets around tourist central Grafton Street (Kehoes, McDad's, The Stag's Head), but my personal favourite is around the corner from the Merrion in Baggot Street Lower.

No, not spartan little James Toner's or O'Donoghues, where The Dubliners started off in the sixties; the winner is Doheny Nesbitt, where I sat contentedly in the snug perusing (not reading reading - too plain) the Irish Times and sipping the best pint of the black stuff in living memory.

Baggot Street Lower provided a superb gastronomic experience, too, at L'Ecrivain, a courtyard restaurant whose name and décor pays homage to Dublin's writers.

Harmonious 

Everyone of note in this curiously inbred capital has made the pilgrimage here to sample Derry Clarke's harmonious food based on the finest suppliers. Quite lovely, but prices, as throughout Ireland, at the upper end, are not for the faint-hearted (lecrivain.com).

The atmosphere did not match L'Ecrivain, but the food surpassed it in Kevin Thornton's restaurant in the chic but soulless Fitzwilliam Hotel on St Stephen's Square (thorntonsrestaurant.com).

Maverick Thornton, whose own arty photographs line the walls of the first floor restaurant, has earned two Michelin stars and lost one, provided perhaps the meal of my life in a near deserted dining room, each ingredient, fish, meat or veg, intensely tasting of itself. Genius.

Afterwards the food was an anti-climax throughout our trip in the east and south of the Republic. I got quite heated in the cellar dining room of another characterful Blue Book property, Cashel Palace Hotel when the cheese tray consisted of claylike stuff adulterated with apricots and the like without even a sniff of the celebrated Cashel Blue.

There are compensations, though, at the 1730 Queen Anne style house, formerly the bishop's residence, where the steward once, a Mr Guinness, decamped to Dublin with a recipe for a new-fangled drink! A private path leads from the back garden up to the Rock Of Cashel. This is very handy for an early start, for this is justifiably one of Ireland's foremost tourist attractions.

On one freak vertiginous limestone outcrop containing the most beautiful and complete Romanesque church in the country, a mammoth medieval cathedral, a castle tower house, an 11th century round tower, a high cross and a stunning 15th century vicar's house. What a package, but then so are many quieter quarters of Ireland. Too often have I sped past heading for the wild West, Kerry or Cork. Cashel rocks!

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