Weekend Break: Park Hotel, Kenmare, Co Kerry

The Park Hotel boasts five-star service and delivers on it in every way possible, writes Jayson Carcione.

IT WAS more Hogwarts than Downton Abbey. That’s what our daughter thought as we stepped over the threshold into the genteel and luxurious Park Hotel Kenmare — and it wasn’t hard to fault her cultural touchstone.

With antique furnishings, dripping tapestries, oil paintings that appeared to move in a certain light, high endless ceilings and a suit of armour properly standing guard on a stairway landing, there is a frizzle of magic about the place.