Vacation Inspiration

Cashel Palace Hotel

• Paula Prickett

Share episode

I fell in love with this amazing property in Ireland as soon as I learned about it.  Take this opportunity to check it out for yourself!

Cashel Palace Hotel

 

Website: https://www.cashelpalacehotel.ie/

Relais & Chateaux Website: https://www.relaischateaux.com/us/ireland/cashel-palace-tipperary

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cashelpalace/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cashelpalacehotel/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/cashel-palace-hotel/

 

General Manager:  Adriaan Bartels 

 

Adriaan was born in Kenya of Dutch parents and first came to Ireland in 1978 to attend Clongowes Wood College, in County Kildare. 

 

Having decided that a career in Hotel Management would enable him to fulfil his desire to travel the world, he graduated in 1988 from DIT, Cathal Brugha Street and Trinity College with a Degree in Hotel Management and ended up working in the Park Hotel Kenmare and The Shelbourne Hotel in Dublin in the early part of his career. 

 

After two years working for Giuseppe Pecorelli in Surrey at Pennyhill Park Hotel in Surrey, he returned to help open Sheen Falls Lodge in Kenmare as Deputy Manager. 

 

Four years later he took on the challenge of running the exclusive Royal Scotsman Train in Scotland for two years before being called back to help open an extension of 21 rooms in Sheen Falls Lodge as General Manager. The next ten years were spent establishing the property as one of Ireland’s premier country resorts. 

 

Prior to his appointment as General Manager of the Cliff House Hotel in Ardmore, Co Waterford, in 2008, he spent the previous two years developing The Marlbrook Resort in Clonmel, Co Tipperary. During his time in CLIFF he was also in charge of the running of the Cliff Townhouse in Dublin, a sister property to the hotel in Ardmore and was involved in the operation of the newest addition to the CLIFF family, Cliff at Lyons in Celbridge, Co Kildare, as Group General Manager. 

 

He is now General Manager of the Cashel Palace Hotel in Cashel, Co Tipperary. Adriaan was awarded a Certificate in Executive Management Development from Cornell University in 2005 and graduated with a Masters Degree in Hospitality Management from Dublin Institute of Technology, Cathal Brugha Street in 2008 to add to his Bachelor Degree. 

 

He was honored to be named the Irish Hospitality Institute ‘Hotel Manager of the Year’ in 2003.



#ireland #hotel #travel

Black Dog Luxury Travel Website: https://blackdogluxurytravel.com/

Want to connect? I'd love to hear from you!
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/blackdogluxurytravel/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/blackdogluxurytravel

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/blackdogluxurytravel/

Paula:

Welcome to the Vacation Inspiration Podcast. I'm Paula, your host and owner of Black Dog Luxury Travel, where we design custom vacations for the discerning traveler. If your vacation plans are in need of some serious inspiration, you are in the right place and I am so glad you are here. Hi, everyone. I am super thrilled to bring this episode to you today. I learned about this property about nine months ago, and when I did it just warmed my heart and it was something that I really wanted to share with everyone. Adrian, the general manager of Cashel Palace hotel was kind enough to join me for this discussion and I hope it inspires you to go and visit them very soon. Hi Adriaan. Thank you so much for joining me today.

Adriaan:

Hi, Paula. Nice to meet.

Paula:

So we have Adriaan here. He's the general manager at the Cashel Palace Hotel, and he is going to talk to us about his amazing property that he has there. First off, where are you located and how do we get to you?

Adriaan:

Very good question. We are in county Tipperary, which is in the heart of Ireland, and we are in a town called Cashel, which is in the heart of Tipperary. And the hotel is in the heart of Cashel, which is right in the center of town. So we're, uh, right in the heart of Ireland.

Paula:

Awesome. So if I was gonna fly into Dublin, like how long would it take me to get to your, to your place?

Adriaan:

So, you are driving for about two hours and it's mostly motorway. It's probably, we're five minutes drive off the motorway. So it's very easy to get here and very easy to navigate and, an easy, easy road to drive. So, two hours from Dublin airport.

Paula:

Wonderful. How far are you from the Shannon?

Adriaan:

About an hour and 15 minutes. So again, also very easy to to navigate and get to us. It's pretty much a straight road to castle from Shannon.

Paula:

Wonderful. So what is the history of this property? I know a little bit, but I know that our listeners don't know anything. So let's, let's talk about, about this amazing, Cashel Palace Hotel.

Adriaan:

so the building itself dates from 1732 and it was built for the Archbishop of Cashel at the gentleman called Archbishop Arthur Price at the time, and a few generations of Archbishop's lived there. Until it became a hotel in 1962 under a chap called Lord Brockett, and he made it into hotel for, uh, a number of years and had several different owners. And then our current owners, the Magna Family, bought it in 2015. And it's undergone a huge and expensive renovation and rebuild. And we opened 1st of March, 2023 as a new five star luxury country house hotel with 42 bedrooms, beautiful spa, and a ballroom, and lots of, lots of things to do in the area.

Paula:

Beautiful. So you mentioned that you have 42 rooms. Do you rooms that are suitable for families at all? Do you have connecting rooms or do you have larger rooms?

Adriaan:

We do, we have a quite a options for families. We have interconnecting suites. We have three of those. We have. Eight bedrooms one of our carriage, what we call our carriage house, and they're four sets of two. So you can interconnect or outer connect as a corridor in the two rooms for people to use as a family. So you can have children in one and the parents in the other, and you can have up to, 16 people in that kind of building as a private kind of option for guests and.

Paula:

Wonderful. I absolutely love that. And do you have a restaurant on.

Adriaan:

We have two restaurants on site. In fact, three really to be honest with you. we have our fine dining restaurant, which is called the Bishop's Buttery, and that's open Tuesday to Saturday inclusive and a Sunday lunch. And then we have Mikey Ryan's Bar in Kitchen, which is a casual. Kind of gastro pub and that's open seven days a week for lunch and dinner. And we have the queen iron room, which is our breakfast and afternoon tea room. So we have various options for dining and eating and there's also a light lunch option there as well. So pl plenty of places for people to eat and enjoy.

Paula:

Awesome. how large is the property that you're on?

Adriaan:

It's on about four or five acre site, and we're just situated at the foot of a very famous, structure called the Rock of Cashel. It was built over the years, uh, centuries of, of various people have lived there and built, uh, churches and monasteries there. And it's a iconic structure that. Over 350,000 people a year come to visit every year. So it's literally in our back garden. And you can look up from the rooms and you're looking up at the rock of cash.

Paula:

Love that So when I'm coming to stay at the Cashel Palace Hotel, what is there to do? What kind of activities do you guys have around there?

Adriaan:

Well, we have a very special person called the Equine Concierge, and her job is to take you, if you've got anything, any interest in, in horses, if you, if you like, anything to do with jumping or riding or going out to sea horses, race horses, uh, the whole lot. We have a very special day out that you can go to see Bali Doyle Stud Farm, which is where they train the race horses. And then you go to Kumar, which is our, if you like, our mothership, and that's where they breed horses. So racehorse is in our blood here. And you can spend the whole day and get completely immersed and see some sites that not everyone can see. It's only private and only available for people staying in the hotel. That's one thing. We can do a lot of activities. We have a beautiful cycleway called the Blueway, which is 22 kilometer cycleway along the river with beautiful Easy path to negotiate. No hills or anything. And we have lots of walking, if you like, that sort of activity. We have monasteries and historical castles, so if you like foot culture and history, we've dozens of places to visit all within half an hour from Castle. So we're not even talking, getting in the car for a very long time. And we have a really unique offering for guests who like food because we have a lot of independent food suppliers who supply the hotel. And you can actually go and see. The apple farm where we make apple juice for the hotel, you can go and see where they make the yogurt for the breakfast. You can see the cheese farm, the cheese factory where they make very special cheese called cashle blue. It's world famous. That's.

Paula:

Yu.

Adriaan:

20 minutes from here. So within tip area itself, there's loads to do. And of course we're situated right in the center of Castle. So you can walk out the door, it's a 50 meter walk, 150 meter, walk out the GA gate, and you're literally in a bustling Irish town. You can go and have pints and pubs. You can go and visit shops, you can go for coffee. It's a really great experience to get to see and feel what real Ireland.

Paula:

I love that. I absolutely love that. I know we were just coming off of the Christmas holiday. What's. Favorite holiday at the hotel.

Adriaan:

I personally like the springtime because I think that's when everyone's starting the season and it's still a bit fresh and the flowers are starting to come out and you know, you're ready for action. And the weather's quite good, usually in the spring in Ireland. So I kind of like the springtime. I think it's a good time to travel. It's not completely f. Busy and full with lots of tourists, yet you get to see all the activities and places you want to go without too much hustle and bustle. Although obviously somewhere gets busier and the weather might be a little bit nicer, but I do prefer the springtime personally.

Paula:

Love that. I love that too. And so what what's your favorite thing about your property or what's your favorite activity to do? While you're there? You're there. You're in the heart of it. I know you have a favorite. Oh, I know what it is.

Adriaan:

Well, I, not that I do this every day, cause I'm not allowed, but I wouldn't, but I would sit in the Guinness Bar and have a pint of Guinness in front of the fireplace. And there's a huge history with Guinness. When the Archbishop was here and lived here in the 70 thirties, he had a. Land agent called Richard Guinness. And Richard's job was to provide ale for the house because in those days it was safer to drink ale than water because you brewed it. And he brewed this beautiful ale. And the father really the archbishop really liked it. And when Richard Guinness had a son, he asked the archbishop to be his godfather because. He was very friendly with him and the archbishop said, well, as long as you name him after me, Henson, his name was Arthur Price, so he called his son Richard, called his son Arthur Guinness. And when Arthur grew up and learned the trade of making the brew from his father, Arthur, the Archbishop actually passed away and left a hundred pounds in his will to which Arthur used to pay for the 9,000 year lease in Guinness in St. James Gate in Dublin. So when you go to Dublin to see the Guinness storehouse, you'll see that the first 10 years of Guinness, he actually brewed an ale before he bra brewed the stout. So we are known as the godfather of Guinness because if it wasn't for the Archbishop of Castle, we wouldn't be drinking Guinness anywhere. So there's a great

Paula:

I love that. That is so fantastic. That is so fantastic. I really feel like the Cashel Palace Hotel is really a destination.

Adriaan:

Absolutely. Paula, we, we are opening up a part of Ireland that has traditionally been a place where people just zoom through. They come from Dublin, they go straight to Kerry or Cork and go see the beautiful part of Ireland there. But don't get me wrong, it's gorgeous, but now we're sudden suddenly offering. People a chance to see the beautiful mountains of temporary, the rivers, the lakes, and all the beautiful scenery in this area and all the activities, and generally Genuinely, there is an awful lot to do. When we had the lockdown, we went to discover our own little area, and it was amazing what we saw then. It's completely very tourist free, very quiet, very, very nice, and I have to say a beautiful part of the country. So I would really recommend that you can base yourself here. sometimes if you spend too much time, you spend one night in a hotel, one night in a hotel, you have to pack every day. Here you can stay for two or three nights and you can go to Cork for a day, which is literally an hour's journey down the road. So you could go to see Middleton Distillery there, come back up, have a bit of lunch there, and come back in the afternoon. You could go to kill Kenny and see the castle there. You could go to Limerick also only an hour away. All these places within one hour's route route. And so you have a nice day trip as well, and you can still stay around the hotel. So two, three days. You have plenty to do. Absolutely. Plenty to do, for sure. And of course, I, I've mentioned we have a beautiful spa here as well, so if you wanna get pampered, you can stay the day in the hotel. You don't have to go anywhere. Just sit and look at the Rock of Cashel. The pool is actually an outdoor pool as well, so you can swim from inside to outdoors and sit out and watch the rock. The beautiful view of the.

Paula:

I love that. I love that. And I'm thinking too, after I've spent like a whole day with the horses, I'm really gonna need the spa for sure.

Adriaan:

Oh, good call. Yeah. Very nice. Very.

Paula:

to counteract it. So anything else that we need to know about the Cashel Palace Hotel?

Adriaan:

Well, just that we're very young. Just started opening. We, we just recently won Hotel of the Year from the Jona Campbell Guide, which is a very great honor for us to get. And uh, we have a great young team, very enthusiastic, really friendly, and we just love welcoming people to the hotel. It's just, it's wide open. You know, we're open to the public. We want people to come in and enjoy and you know, there's lots of open fires in the lobbies and the lounges and you can just chill out and relax and the food is really good. And I just think it's a great hotel. I'm a bit biased of course, but, um, we really, really, really looking forward to welcoming people from from America to come and visit us. And just, even if you drop by, you only want a cup of coffee, we're very happy to have you.

Paula:

I love that. I absolutely love that. And I know that you were part of the Relais Chateau brand as well, and they always have amazing properties in their portfolios. They're very special properties.

Adriaan:

And we have a great link between the other five properties that are members of Ireland because you come to stay in each one and you can actually do a whole tour of Ireland. See all of Ireland by staying in just rally and shadow members. You can go down to Kerry and see, stay in two beautiful hotels there. Bali Finn is just up the road from here. And in Kanamara we have a beautiful place called Bain Hinge Castle and in W Wick when in Wexford there's a place called Mayfield House. So you can get to see the whole of the country by just staying in relay properties as well. Si. Super.

Paula:

That. I absolutely love that. Well, thank you so much for your time today, Adrian. I do appreciate it. I look forward to you welcoming everyone to Ireland I'm always ready to go. Always.

Adriaan:

Been a pleasure to meet you and thanks so much for taking the time to talk to me.

Paula:

Thank you.

Adriaan:

Thank you.

Paula:

I hope you enjoyed our little chat today with Adriaan, from the Cashel Palace Hotel if you are thinking of staying there, when you're in Ireland, you can book directly off their website, which is Cashel palace, hotel dot I E. And I will also have that link in the show notes, or you can contact your favorite travel advisor, and I know they would be more than happy to help you out. And if you go, please tell Adrian. I said, hi and have an amazing, amazing time. If you've enjoyed this episode of vacation inspiration, it would mean the world to me. If you would leave a quick review and hit subscribe, it only takes a couple of seconds and it makes a huge difference. That's all for this episode. Thank you so much for joining us. I can't wait to see you again very, very soon.