A €60 MILLION restoration project on a former stately home burned by the IRA is set to transform it into a luxury five-star hotel.

YOU could be forgiven for thinking you’d walked on to a movie set — say, the Great Gatsby — when you pull up at the entrance to the Capella Castlemartyr Resort: it is a set-dressed timepiece and package, aimed at the wealthy and those seeking to unwind, and prepared to pay for the privileges.

GUESTS at the opulent Capella hotel in Castlemartyr can avail of any service they desire once it’s legal and moral, president and chief executive Horst Schulze pledged yesterday at the opening of the €80 million resort.

TYPICAL. You wait for years for a tourism project like a five-star hotel and golf course, holiday lodges dotted along the fairways, plus a spa...and then two come along almost at once.

OVER €60 million is being spent on constructing the first hotel in this country designed for six-star luxury.