Best Castle Hotels in Connemara in 2023

The most renowned of all Ireland’s Castle Hotels, 5-star Ashford Castle in Co. Galway, is an extremely impressive property, with an extravagant setting, an imposing exterior, and very lavish interiors. Those factors combined with a great range of modern facilities, fantastic food, and extremely high levels of service, make Ashford Castle a fairly consistent choice for any list of the best hotels in Ireland, Europe, and quite possibly the world. THE ACCOMMODATION: They have a huge choice of rooms and suites, 83 in total, as well as one private ‘Hideaway Cottage‘ on the castle grounds, check your options out on the hotel website here. They are all individually designed, and with great attention to detail, containing many well-chosen antique furniture pieces, works of art, and high-quality fabrics that complement the castle’s original features. The result is old-fashioned elegance and opulence but with all the modern luxuries of a five-star hotel. PRICES: Check out all the price details on Ashford Castle’s own website here. FACILITIES & THINGS TO DO: The grounds are as beautiful as you can imagine, the castle sits by the shores of Lough Corrib and has acres of formal gardens and lawns, as well as lots of wild, untouched READ MORE

Consistently rated as one of Ireland’s best luxury hotels, the first thing to recommend about the four-star Ballynahich Castle in Galway is the superb location: It has 350 acres of peaceful, mature woodland that sit below the Twelve Bens Mountains like a green oasis in what is very much the heart of Connemara, one of Ireland’s most beautiful natural landscapes.  It will also impress with its extremely high levels of service, comfort, and facilities, its salmon lake, its top-class restaurant and welcoming bar, and also with its interesting, rather eclectic history. THE ACCOMMODATION: The castle hotel has a range of luxury rooms and suites in both the castle and the newer Riverside Lodge. The pick of the bunch, for those with the means, is the Lettery Lodge; a four double/twin bedroom private self-catering lodge one minute’s walk from the Castle. It offers privacy, and supreme luxury and comfort, as well as tremendous views of Ben Lettery Mountain from the ground-floor master suite. Check your options on the booking page here. You will find all of the accommodation choices extremely comfortable and stylish, with an elegant, early 20th-century ambiance. Some of the rooms, but not all, also have four poster beds to take READ MORE