In keeping with the hotel's tradition, this did not involve merely handing over a credit card. It was more of a ceremony, preceded, as I recall, by the manager sitting down with us in the lobby for a chat. For a moment, I thought we were being offered counselling, and I wondered how bad the bill could be; but no, this was just the Kerry way, and it was grand.
The manager of Kenmare's famous Park Hotel was on the radio during the week talking about the death of Kerry hospitality. Maybe he didn't put it quite so starkly. But he was lamenting the current difficulty of finding and keeping local staff and thereby guaranteeing a traditional Kerry welcome, rather than the faceless anonymity of many international hotels. And I knew what he meant, because I've been a victim of his hospitality myself.
You wouldn't often find me in a place like the Park. As described in the brochures, the hotel is a "five-star, chateau-style country house set in 11 acres of tended gardens". And suffice to say its prices reflect the upkeep of so many adjectives.
But, on a special occasion a few years ago, my wife and I stayed there for a weekend. It was a little whim of mine, embarked upon in a spirit of romance and adventure. A spirit which abandoned me the moment I drove through the entrance and suddenly remembered the state of my car.
It wasn't just that the guest parking area was full of gleaming new vehicles and that mine was old and noisy and hadn't been washed during the lifetime of the then Government. It also had a dent in it the size of Belgium, among other features. You know how it is when you're travelling: you always mean to visit the car wash and the panel-beaters beforehand, but there's never time. Anyway, while I was reflecting ruefully on this, I noticed the staff parking area. And sheepishly I pulled in there instead.
The hotel was everything it purported to be. Our room had more furniture than the house we now live in, much of it antique, and we had a very relaxing time. Parents among you will immediately deduce that this was before we had children, since when relaxation in a hotel room has been impossible, even in Kerry. The last place we stayed in was in Brussels in September, and during a preliminary inspection of the room, our two-year-old daughter pulled off a door handle and the front panel of a drawer. Both of these had been loose, it turned out, and we were able to put them back. But encouraged by her early success, she then knocked over a large, ceramic bedside lamp, which I caught before it hit the floor but not before it had cracked down the middle, adding 1,500 Belgian francs to the room bill.
There were two bedside lamps, and we decided then that the top of the wardrobe would be a better place for the second one. It was a very pretty room, full of thoughtful decorative touches for people aged three and over. By the time we adapted it for children, there wasn't much space on top of the wardrobe.
But there were no such worries in the Park Hotel, and we lived like minor royalty for the weekend. There was antique furniture everywhere, even in the corridors. Sometimes on the way to the room, you'd sit on a sofa - just because it was there!
And everywhere we went, there was Kerry hospitality. I don't know what it is about people from that part of the world, but they just seem to have this warmth and generosity of spirit that makes those of us from the border counties, at least, feel narrow and flinty by comparison. And the welcome was still as warm when it came to paying the bill.
In keeping with the hotel's tradition, this did not involve merely handing over a credit card. It was more of a ceremony, preceded, as I recall, by the manager sitting down with us in the lobby for a chat. For a moment, I thought we were being offered counselling, and I wondered how bad the bill could be; but no, this was just the Kerry way, and it was grand.
It was grand until the manager gestured towards a member of staff and said: "Denis (or whoever) will bring your car around". Getting suddenly tense, my instinct was to deny having a car, but I noticed with considerable irritation that I was jiggling the keys in my hand. So I handed them over to the man and went back to paying the bill; with which, if it had included a charge for "possession of embarrassing vehicle and use of staff parking facilities", I was in no mood to quibble. Then, with the cheerful wishes of staff ringing in our ears, we walked the approximate four yards from the front door to where the man had left the car, which was sitting there in a cruel imitation of a limousine. On a scale of humiliation, the episode didn't match a later occasion when, readers might recall, I had to give a lift in the same vehicle (older, noisier, and in the final months of its life) to John Hume. But it was close.
So I wish the Park Hotel luck in its efforts to maintain a traditional Kerry welcome. But if the worst comes to the worst, I would just say this. Faceless anonymity isn't all bad.