Excitement is building in the Mayo village of Cong as it braces for the wedding of the year when Rory McIlroy and Erica Stoll tie the knot at Ashford Castle next weekend.

The Saddle Room at the Shelbourne Hotel is a steak and seafood restaurant with old-school classics like ham-hock terrine.

DRINK THIS

It’s the little things about Ashford Castle that makes a stay there so enjoyable, writes Conall Ó Fátharta.    

BOYNE BECKONS

Mick Jagger "could be a eunuch", one half of Grace Kelly’s face was "like a bull calf" and Elizabeth Taylor was vulgar and unladylike.

When Monaco’s reigning monarch Prince Albert married South African Olympic swimmer Charlene Wittstock in 2011, she was invariably referred to in the media as a commoner.

ONE only has to go back to 2012 to find a Nicole Kidman vehicle that elicited gasps among the critics at Cannes.

Nicole Kidman felt taking the lead role in 'Grace of Monaco' was a "chance of a lifetime".

The allure of superstar Nicole Kidman was not enough to salvage "Grace of Monaco" from the scathing wrath of critics as the movie opened the Cannes Film Festival.

We’ve been waiting a long time for it, but the new — and very

As Ireland’s Blue Book celebrates its 40th anniversary, Pól Ó Conghaile visits Dunbrody House to find out what it means, and takes, to become a member.

THE significance of President Michael D Higgins dining in state at Windsor castle last night is that it is the culmination of British recognition of Irish independence. It is also a full recognition of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

Going racing? Be odds-on favourite for best dressed with a winter-worthy hat.

When controversy erupted in the mid-1960s over plans for its construction, a revered architectural expert opined that the ESB headquarters which now stands on Dublin’s Fitzwilliam St was only replacing “one damned house after another ... a rubbish uneven series”.

ROYALTY has set trends and led fashionable society for millennia.

Life Saving: Why We Need Poetry, Introductions to Great Poets

The Ring of Kerry gem-set hotel Parkna-silla, on 500 acres and with 62 lodges and villas, has been put up for sale for €10m.

She was the Hollywood icon who married a prince. On the 30th anniversary of her death, PJ Gibbons looks back at the life of Grace Kelly.

When Grace Kelly came to Dublin, she always requested the same room in The Shelbourne Hotel. Today it is known as the Princess Grace suite, writes Vickie Maye.

IF YOUR holiday reading includes a Le Carré blockbuster or a Graham Greene reliable, then you will find no better backdrop than Estoril — the stylish coastal town just north of Lisbon in Portugal.

Uploading six decades of work from the Lensmen Photographic Agency is an epic task, says Colette Keane

THE Shelbourne Hotel is an institution at any time of year.

IT will be “business as normal” at the five-star Ashford Castle Hotel, receivers appointed to the leading European hotel said yesterday.

GUCCI, Italy’s most successful fashion house, is in the midst of a year-long 90th anniversary celebration.

George Bernard Shaw loved Parknasilla. And Marie Toft isn’t one bit surprised.

STYLE guru Celia Holman Lee busily married the best of Irish fashion with the royal wedding yesterday as more than 300 — mostly women — crowded Limerick’s Milk Market for a public screening of the nuptials.

PRINCE ALBERT of Monaco has revealed that an Irish university research post is to be established to commemorate his mother, the late Hollywood actress and Princess of Monaco, Grace Kelly.

Monaco’s Prince Albert has revealed that an Irish university research post is to be set up to commemorate his late Hollywood actress mother Grace Kelly.

Prince Albert II of Monaco wished the Government every success tackling economic woes as he strolled through Dublin with his fiancée on a three-day State visit.

Prince Albert II of Monaco will make a two-day State visit to Ireland next week.

PRINCE Albert of Monaco is engaged to marry Charlene Wittstock, a former Olympic swimmer for South Africa, a union that will give the Mediterranean principality its first crown princess since the prince’s mother, American actress Grace Kelly, died in 1982.

Prince Albert of Monaco is engaged to marry South African former Olympic swimmer Charlene Wittstock, the royal palace said today.

A PRINCE is expected to visit a Cork school next year which his mother, the late Princess Grace of Monaco, helped nearly 50 years ago.

HE may have failed to win a seat in the local elections but a Corkman has pulled off a major diplomatic coup that could have huge spin-offs for Irish tourism.

ONE of Ireland’s best known hotels, which has counted Princess Grace, Charles de Gaulle and George Bernard Shaw as guests, reopened yesterday following a multi-mullion euro refurbishment.

SECURITY concerns over a private visit by Princess Grace and Prince Rainier to Ireland were raised with senior gardaí, ahead of a private ball in Co Wicklow.

The Taoiseach’s annual summer retreat is to get a luxurious revamp over the next two years, it emerged today.

ONE of Kerry’s oldest hotels is due to close this weekend for a major facelift over the winter and spring months.

ONE of Kerry’s oldest hotels is due to close this weekend for a major facelift over the winter and spring months.

De Valera’s funeral left one British diplomat under-whelmed, writes Ryle Dwyer.

Monaco’s Prince Albert II said today he was “set up” for fatherhood by a former flight attendant who claims she had his child.