Comfort and style

THERE are hotels we stay in and hotels we savour. Functional to fancy.

And in terms of the latter, committing comes down to rates and reason, price and purpose.

The five-star K Club in Kildare is, in many respects, the definitive case study. Comfortingly stylish, it provides a pretty reliable barometer of the nation’s fears and fortunes. Excesses of the past have been eliminated without relinquishment of its sense of self-worth. Unlike Ireland Inc, though, it has remained in full indigenous ownership, a point it the hotel is thankful to Dr Michael Smurfit for.