WHEN I WAS given the task of staying a night in a B &B for research purposes, I thought "oh no". My previous experiences of B&Bs were not good. To me, staying in one involved being in someone else's home, making conversation, loitering and casually mingling with other guests. The memory of a stay in a B&B in Co Kerry some years ago, when I was awoken after a hard night on the town by a golden Labrador panting in the bed beside me, is still there.
I prefer my accommodation to be impersonal, sterile and largely anonymous. Everything the B&B model prides itself on – hospitality, the personal touch, cosiness – I try to avoid when I am on a night away.
My designated B&B was O Murchu’s, five kilometres from Kinsale in Co Cork, at a crossroads near a local shop. It is Fáilte Ireland-approved, and is also a member of the Town and Country Homes Association and online reservation system Gulliver Ireland. The owners, Catherine and Bob Murphy, left their small farmholding eight years ago, and built their house on a site they owned. Two years later, with their children flying the nest, they decided to start a B&B. The large bungalow has three en-suite guest rooms, as well as a separate sitting/dining room.
We arrived after 7pm and were met by the owners and two family pets, who immediately cosied up to my nine-year-old son, Oran. Our room was spotless and comfortable and contained a double and single bed, en-suite bathroom, portable television and tea- and coffee-making facilities.
Junior instinctively reached for my laptop and began scanning for Wi-Fi access. With none available (the family allows guests to use their home PC, which has internet), he began to survey his surroundings more acutely. No lobby to run amok in. No elevators to ride. No mini-bar to raid, no Wiis or Playstations. His technological nine-year-old mind had met with the strange new world of the Irish B&B.
After these initial adjustments, we all settled in well. There was little to do in Kinsale – it was too early in the season for the funfair rides – so after a tour of the town, we made our way back to our adopted home. A mile from the driveway, my partner saw something familiar at the side of the road. It was Patch, the family’s 12-month-old puppy, who had greeted Oran eagerly earlier. A car had hit him.
We told the owners, who were very upset, and over coffee and bourbon creams, we all swapped pet stories.
“It’s a bit weird,” said Kate, a guest from England, “but it’s a nice weird. It’s not an issue of cost as to why I decided to stay here. I could have stayed in any of the hotels, but I would have been hard-pushed to find someone to talk to.”
Next morning at breakfast, Catherine introduced all the guests to each other. A young Irish couple, who had been to a wedding, were seated next to Kate. We chatted amicably as we tucked into our enormous full Irish cardiac-arrest special fry-up, while passing around sections of the Sunday papers.
“In a hotel you’re only a number,” Catherine says. “Here, you can get a hot-water bottle at night or a Panadol in the morning. Often, when people come back from the mad drive to Kinsale and they’re shaking, I’ll give them a drop of brandy.”
Irish guests, she explains, are something of a rarity and most business is from Europeans and Americans.
“Last year we had a lot of honeymooners,” she says. “We often get parents here who have been given a gift of an overnight stay as a wedding anniversary.”
The few Irish who do stay are younger and mostly in the area for a specific event, such as a wedding.
In recent years Irish people have been going on more foreign holidays. “Maybe that will change this year and more of them will holiday at home. We haven’t seen it yet though,” says Catherine.
Every two years Fáilte Ireland arrives unannounced to inspect the property. “They look under the beds and over the beds and into the fridge, and everywhere else you can think of,” says Catherine. “They want basic cleanliness. Thank God, the last time they came, everything was all right.”
Prices are €32 (low season) and €35 (high season) per person sharing, including breakfast. For a single person, the charges are €43 (low season) and €45 (high season), and there is a 25 per cent reduction for children under 12. To book, see www.omurchubandb.com.
