West Cork's rockstar retreat hits all the right notes for hospitality

Tommy Barker visits 18th-century Dunowen House and is impressed with its five-star hotel vibe and music memorabilia

Bedrooms at Dunowen House have a luxury yet laidback vibe.  This one even has a tonnes’ weight spoon-shaped bath carved from exotic, pale stone in pride of place in front of Dunowen’s exposed rubble stone internal wall.

It's a long way from the electric rock and roll hedonism of the 1960s, to a rustic-chic country retreat in West Cork in the 2020s. Or, is it?

The peninsulas west of Kinsale, sticking out into the wild Atlantic, have woven a spell for decades for locals, visitors, seekers of beauty, artists, writers and musicians.