The K Club

The K Club (more formally known as the Kildare Hotel and Country Club) is possibly Ireland’s most imposing country hotel, and without a doubt its poshest. While some of the castles and manor house hotels can be disarmingly friendly, even over-familiar, the K Club is all buttoned-up elegance, a throwback to the days when the gentleman’s game had a strict dress code—no salmon-pink polos or swoosh logos here, much less jeans or trainers.

The hotel itself is a magnificent Georgian mansion, settled on seven hundred acres of land, along a mile-long span of the famed River Liffey, and even in this most picturesque of countries, it’s hard to imagine a setting more scenic. Rooms are classic in decor, packed with antique furnishings, and walls are lined with rich printed fabrics, the overall effect recalling some of the grand hotels of Paris.

Perhaps that’s no accident—the Byerley Turk serves French cuisine alongside upscale Irish fare, served in an impossibly formal environment, and even the Legend’s restaurant, in the golf club, makes American country club dining rooms look like chip shops by comparison.

The Arnold Palmer-designed course, site of the 2006 Ryder Cup, is world-famous, and justifiably so, though several others are within an hour’s drive, in case you’re a fanatic on an Irish golfing marathon. Those not addicted to golf may pursue another brand of strenuous idleness in the spa, partaking of a wide range of treatments and therapies.

Horseback riding and clay pigeon shooting round out the suite of gentlemanly outdoor activities, and we hear the Liffey is particularly friendly to fishermen, stocked with trout and salmon. And should the country life prove too slow, Dublin is less than an hour’s drive away.

How to get there:
The K Club is approximately a 30 minute drive from Dublin city center.