DALKEY, IE (2024) “The Hamptons of Ireland”

There were girls everywhere. Beautiful girls. Girls in bikinis.

Ireland’s new haircut

Planning my trip to Dublin, I could see that the city was not actually on the coast of the Irish Sea, but inland enough that you couldn’t easily get to the ocean.

So I looked on Google maps for a place outside the city along the coast.  Someplace I could stay for a couple days.

South of Dublin was an area called Dalkey.  A commuter train had multiple stops there, which seemed to indicate the many small coastal towns of this district were popular with the locals.   

Also, somewhere in my research I saw that Bono from U2, was often seen in Dalkey, so that seemed like a recommendation of sorts as well.

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In Dalkey, I saw a listing for The Claremont Hotel, near the beach town of Sandy Cove.  The Hotel had very high ratings on Booking.com and was close to the commuter train.  It was about the price of a cheap hotel in America ($120/night).  So I booked it, not really knowing what it was. 

When I confirmed my reservation from Dublin, I got a brief note back saying: “Time of arrival, please.”  The curtness of this message was unusual.  Most hotels do not pressure you on this question.  Often, you don’t know when you will arrive.

Also, I noticed that the Claremont Hotel was now calling itself “the Claremont House”.  That was worrisome, but I double checked my reservation.  It was definitely the same place.

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I caught the commuter train to Sandy Cove, and after 30 minutes or so, got off at a quiet, leafy suburban station.  It was a beautiful spring day and you could smell the ocean.  I was very excited to be there. 

When I got to the address, I saw that it wasn’t a hotel at all, it was a narrow three storey house, attached to a row of other houses.

There were no signs, nothing indicating what it was.  It was just a house.  I rang the bell and an unhappy woman (60?) came and opened it.  She asked me my name, which I told her.  She frowned and opened the door and without introduction or explanation gave me a quick tour of the ground floor. 

There was a TV room, which you could tell was never used.  There was a hallway.  There was a little breakfast area, where she told me I would have my breakfast, between 8 and 10.

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The train to Dalkey

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She then took me upstairs to my room, which was quite luxurious compared to the hostel I’d been staying at in Dublin.  Instead of a pod bed in a crowded room, I had two real beds, a table, a chair, and a large window.  In the spacious bathroom was a claw foot bathtub, a toilet, a bidet, and big puffy towels. 

The large window looked toward the sea and directly beneath me, a clothesline of freshly washing sheets and linens, was drying in the sun.  It was lovely.

Without ever making eye contact, the woman gave me a set of medieval-style keys and left me.

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I wasn’t bothered by her sour demeanor. While traveling one encounters many people who do not have the proper disposition to be in the tourist industry, and yet they are. 

I laid down on the double bed, it was incredibly comfortable.  I opened the window and breathed in the clean ocean breeze.  I started a hot bath and began to undress.  

I had not had a bath or shower since I left the USA, four days before.  So that was heavenly, as you could imagine.

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Once I was clean and refreshed, I headed back out and walked the 20 minutes into the little town of Sandy Cove.  It was an unusually warm and sunny day, close to 90 degrees.  By Irish standards, it was a scorcher.

The small town of Sandy Cove had a strip of upscale shops. I did a quick walk up and down the main block, noticing the expensive cars, fancy boutiques and fashionable people on the sidewalks. 

Everyone was suddenly beautiful and very well dressed, significantly more so than in Dublin.  

Holy shit, I thought, Dalkey is the Hamptons of Ireland!   This was where rich Irish people went in the summer.  Which explained why Bono hung out here.

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BONO with Irish Poet Paul Muldoon in Dalkey

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