Rosleague Manor Hotel

This is a review of Mark, the hotel owner, rather than of a stay at the hotel. I believe it is relevant so please read on. My partner and I, while driving around on a very wet day yesterday, ended up stuck in a roadside ditch near Rosleague Manor. In search of help I met Mark who was on a cherry picker pruning some large trees on the hotel avenue. He immediately dropped tools, making very light of the interruption, and came along to examine the situation. The extraction of the car from the ditch took over an hour and necessitated an amount of experimentation. Mark was extremely helpful and very kind, inter alia lying flat on his front in the muck to examine the problem lest the car be damaged. He was understanding and patient in dealing with my nervousness, expert at the task and willing to try three times before we had success. We learned only by accident that he owned the hotel. It seems to me that the characteristics displayed by Mark would guarantee that one would be in very good hands in his hotel and we look forward to patronising it on our next trip to Connemara. ‘Ar scáth a chéile a mhaireann na daoine’ is an old Irish saying to indicate that people depend on each other’; in other words, vaunting the importance of community and kindness. Mark exemplified this and transformed a stressful experience into a pleasant story of how nice people are in the west of Ireland.

We were on a driving tour of Ireland with friends and stayed for two nights so we could enjoy drives around Connemara. The Rosleague Manor occupies a beautiful position overlooking a lake. We had a large comfortable room with views across the lake. There was a good size bathroom and our only real criticism of this hotel were the tiny bath towels! We ate both nights in the restaurant where we had excellent food and very friendly attentive service. Breakfast was excellent with freshly cooked and very tasty hot food as well as an extensive buffet. Overall on our 15 day tour of Ireland this was the best hotel we stayed in.

We verbleven één nacht in dit hotel. Het bed was heerlijk breed, in tegenstelling tot ervaringen in andere hotels tot op heden. 's Avonds echt heerlijk gegeten hier. Oogt wat chique, maar viel mee uiteindelijk. Echt top gegeten. Het ontbijt was ook in orde. Ik miste wel de mogelijkheid om een pannenkoek of french toast te bestellen. Wel stonden er allerlei eigerechten op de kaart. Verder waren er ook geen vleeswaren/kaas als beleg. Maar al met al prima hotel.

Love this place - hadn’t managed to get here for a while but went back on friday - one of the best meals I’ve had in a long time. If your thing is a gin and tonic by the fire in a beautiful old house with a stunning view , excellent service and gorgeous food in a laid back atmosphere Rossleague is for you.

Feel like you are coming home for the holidays at this lovely Manor House. Our room was spacious, beautiful and comfortable. After driving and touring all day, we enjoyed a walk through their gardens down to the water and enjoyed some wine outside and in the solarium before dinner. Dinner was fabulous - 5 Star value and taste. I went with the 5 course both nights and my husband did the 2 course. I ordered the lobster thermidore which was the entire lobster, well displayed and all the claw meat accessible and placed with in the space by the head. Eatables and potato’s were served family style to the table. The staff is friendly and accommodating. Every day, we enjoyed wine or cocktails in one of the sitting rooms by the fire or outside when it was nice. This is a must stay and we will return if we are ever back in Ireland. It was so comfortable and relaxing, we added an extra night. Also - go down to the water side and try a crab sandwich from the Crab shack down the street! (I decided to read why one reviewer would rate this as terrible. It appeared they were looking for 5 Star accommodations in the room (flawless pillows, light fixtures, vanities). I loved the ways the rooms looked. As I mentioned… it’s like going home for the holidays.

At the outset we can see this hotel has loads of potential. The location is excellent, it is located near Kylemore Abbey, has views over the bay and overlooks lovely gardens. Unbfortunately our experience was not a good one. The interior is let down by a deference to the old-world view of a country house hotel in Ireland. I can see why this may appeal to some, indeed most of the ratings are very good, but we found the lack of consistency and attention to detail in interior design and housekeeping, in both the public areas and the bedroom to be very off-putting. It was certainly not the 'luxurious' standard quoted several times in the hotel's website. For example, why on earth was there an ironing board in the front reception area, why are the radiators strangely mounted side-on, or why does the bar area, which is bright and airy, have completely different styles of chairs - old and new. The white paint is peeling off on some of the skirting boards. Above all, why are the corridors leading to the bedrooms and dining room filled with a row of old chairs - I counted eight of them there. Turn around the next corner and there were even more chairs, it was like a 19th century doctor's waiting room. We had a junior suite and it had superb views over the garden and Ballinakill bay, but our first impressions it was really a bit drab. The bed was comfortable, but the pillows were a dreadful hard foam type. My wife had such a sore head in the morning that we asked (and got) a softer feather pillow. The bathroom was very interesting, because it had clearly been refurbished recently - bright and light tiles on the floor a new radiator, towel rail and sanitary-ware. But then there was an old-fashioned 1970's pull-cord light over the mirror, along with a random wooden clothes hangar. And quirkily placed over the bath was an old dark wooden bath board which looked so out of place. More space could have been created if, instead of separate bath and shower units, there had been a single larger shower or an integral bath/shower. The dining room is consistent in its traditional style which is good and the service at breafast was good from the attentive staff. It's a pity we din't have the evening meal on both nights because we were put off by the rest of the hotel - most people seem very pleased by it. For this trip around the west coast of Ireland we used the Georgina Campbell "Best of the Best" guide to research our hotel stays for this trip and 3 of the 4 recommendations were spot on. I suppose we should have paid more attention to the comment about Rosleague Manor that it is "interestingly furnished in an upbeat traditional style..", whatever that means. The guide also says "...the energetic young owner-manager, Mark Foyle, is gradually working his way through a major renovation programme at this lovely, graciously proportioned, pink-washed Regency House." From our experience Mark would do well to get some professional design advice to deliver a truly luxu