Brown trout fishing is also available; Bellinter has rights to a 4.8km stretch of river. One of Europe's most important and fascinating Neolithic monuments, the passage graves at Newgrange, older than the Pyramids, is around half an hour away by car. Bellinter is very much a work in progress, with more facilities opening over the coming months. Past the two giant, 250-year-old beech trees on the front lawn, two more outbuildings are being converted into a cinema and children's playhouse; the latter will have a miniature version of the nearby Hill of Tara, the mythical seat of the high kings of Celtic Ireland. Diarmuid Gavin's "pavilion pod," a silver medal winner at last year's Chelsea Flower Show, will also have a permanent home in the gardens by the end of the year.
Unfortunately, the unfinished nature of the project seems occasionally to extend to the service. The staff is young, friendly and very willing to help, but sometimes their inexperience shows. If you're paying up to £260 (NT$17,200) for a room, you don't expect the hotel barman to greet you with "yes, mate." You are not in a Dublin boozer; you are in a wonderful mahogany and marble bar, the traditional vibe of which has been subverted by a specially commissioned mural by leading Irish artist David Godbold of an angel looking down on a fairy-tale mountain landscape.
The vaulted cellar restaurant, sister to Bourke's Eden brasserie in Dublin, can feel a bit austere on sunny mornings and early evenings, although breakfasts and lunches are served on the back lawn, weather permitting. The sound of the space needs more care, too; the Gotan Project's La Revancha del Tango CD, in itself a ubiquitous cliche, was played on a loop for all four meals we had in the restaurant. Still, these are small quibbles in a new hotel that gets many more things right than wrong. Not only have Bourke and his team thoughtfully and intelligently restored a landmark Irish property, they have also captured a sense of a long history of hospitality. Bellinter seems somehow to embody the Irish gift for mixing people up and making them feel comfortable.
As Bourke says: "Bellinter is a very happy, very egalitarian, and very Irish country house."
On the Net: www.bellinterhouse.com.
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