Happy campers

Noelle McCarthy enjoys some of the creature comforts now on offer under canvas.

ANY psychologist will tell you, there’s healing in taking a miserable experience and remaking it into something pleasurable. This is part of the reason why going to stay at Grove Lane is such a lovely thing to do.

One of the newest of the so-called ‘Glamping Sites’ to have sprung up around the country, Killarney’s Grove Lane will cure unhappy campers of their bad memories forever.

‘Glamping’ stands for glamorous camping, in case you didn’t know. It’s a silly word and an oxymoron, camping being about as glamorous as politics is honest and accountancy is interesting. That is, not at all. Not here anyway.

In some places, like the Serengeti maybe, or the Arabian desert, a night spent under canvas can be romantic and magical. Ireland is not one of these places.

Camping here is one of the least glamorous past-times it is possible to engage in, as anyone who has ever been to Oxygen will tell you.

With the weather we get, trying to sleep in a tent for a few days is an experience so deeply unpleasant, it borders on lunacy. And that’s if you even manage to get the thing up in the first place, amidst the screaming winds and driving rains of summer.

Those of us unfortunate enough to have experienced it know that camping equals filth, wetness, the smell of damp tarpaulin in the morning, not to mention perpetually cold feet.

And then there is Grove Lane Glamping in Killarney. This, as the man says, a different story.

Imagine a lovely little laneway, just off the main Cork road. There’s a blue gate at the entrance, and a plaster pig on top of the gatepost. This is the ‘Welcome Pig’, a Grove Lane totem. She has long eyelashes like Minnie Mouse, and looks like she is smiling. The pig is charming and unexpected, like everything else on this campsite.

Now you go past the pig, and into a tiny orchard. There are fairy lights on all the trees, in amongst the crab apples. In the field beside you, horses are grazing. These are the placid, big-footed beasts that pull the jaunting cars of Killarney.

You carry on down the path and in front of you is a massive pyramid of cream-coloured canvas. This is a bell tent, just like the ones at the circus. There are only two tents at Grove Lane, and they are spread far apart for privacy.

On the night we stayed, there was a family of four in the other tent, including two small children. We never heard a peep from them, the bell tents are good insulators.

So far, so lovely. But the real revelation comes when you pull the zipper open and see what’s waiting.

Comfort is the selling point of glamping, and at Grove Lane your comfort is taken very seriously. Each tent is laid out like a rich girl’s bedroom, if the rich girl in question had excellent taste in vintage furniture.

There are various cupboards and chests of drawers, all full of lamps and soft blankets, books, board games, and tourist pamphlets, and everything else you could ever imagine needing for a night’s camping.

Plus some lovely things you never would have thought of. Like an antique wash-hand basin, and an old-fashioned storm lantern. And in amongst the vintage bits are nice contemporary touches, like a giant squashy beanbag, and a big flowery Cath Kidston teapot.

Best of all though, the spectre of the soggy sleeping bag is gone forever. The centrepiece of the bell tent is a big double bed, standing high off the ground, complete with proper sheets and a duvet, and a pile of pillows.

It was pelting down as usual on the day we got there, this being August in Kerry. But our bell tent remained completely waterproof through a ferocious all-night deluge. And both tents come with a wood-burning stove and a pile of fresh logs to make them even more cozy.

It’s million miles away from a streaming pup-tent halfway up a mountain, or at a muddy festival. This is camping in peace and comfort. This is glamping.

This is heaven.

Grove Lane is owned by Linda and Mike O Sullivan, a married couple who are themselves happy glampers, which explains their attention to detail, and the obvious love and care that goes into it.

Linda also works at Randles Court Hotel, one of Killarney’s long-established 4 Stars, which is why Grove Lane is offering a ‘best of both worlds’ package of a stay in the bell tent followed by a night in Randles.

It’s a lovely holiday, and a savvy move to attract newcomers who might want to ease themselves into the new world of glamping. It’s still a relatively fresh concept here, although it has been growing in popularity.

The trend first kicked off in the UK a few years ago on the festival circuit, when the likes of Kate Moss and her posse were seen living it up in sumptuous yurts (aka traditional Mongolian shepherd tents) at Glastonbury.

Our own festivals weren’t long jumping on the teepee train; this year, as usual, Electric Picnic partygoers will be able to choose from a range of glamping options, including tipis, chalet-style festihuts, and the luxury LPM Bohemia yurts and bell tents, which come with sheepskins, and inflatable mattresses. The bad news is that all the LPM Bohemia numbers are sold out already.

But wannabe glampers need not despair if you’re missing out on a yurt at the Picnic. There are plenty of other sites all over the country.

Options range from the adorably quirky, such as Grove Lane or the well-known eco-friendly Teapot Lane in North Leitrim, or for serious sybarites there is Dromquinna Manor near Kenmare. Dromquinna is run in association with the 5-star Park Hotel, and is unsurprisingly, the last word in luxury.

The tents come courtesy of specialist safari designers from India, and are suitably majestic, double stitched to keep out, not only the rain, but also tigers, presumably.

Meanwhile, if you’re looking for a child-friendly experience, check out Teepee Valley in Antrim. Here, kids and their parents can choose to sleep over in authentic teepees, yurts or a fully-decorated gypsy caravan, a la Wanderly Wagon.

All of this is part of the appeal of glamping, which is doing something different, in a place with a unique atmosphere.

Glampsites are doing their best to maximise the ‘wow’ factor of sleeping under canvas, but it’s the little touches that make a stay memorable. So it is at Grove Lane.

A pathway lit up with lanterns. A tub of Green and Black’s hot chocolate, and a jar of marshmallows waiting in the kitchenette. In the morning, little pots of organic yoghurt alongside fruit and juice in our own personal chilly-bin. And the ‘welcome pig’ on the gatepost.

Glamping at Grove Lane isn’t just ‘something different’ it’s also something rare. A place that knows how special it is, it’s a place that makes you feel special.