The Merrion Hotel

The Merrion Hotel

Walk through the Front Hall of The Merrion and you pass murals by Martin Mooney, a sign of how seriously this Dublin hotel treats its art. Four Georgian townhouses were joined to form the 142-room property, and the join shows in the details: original cornices, handwoven carpets, fireplaces in some rooms, four floors instead of a tower. The hotel sits opposite Government Buildings, close enough to walk to the National Gallery, the National Museum of Ireland and St. Stephen's Green, and it holds its own private collection of nineteenth- and twentieth-century Irish and European art in the public rooms, the sort of holding most hotels don't bother building. Patrick Guilbaud's two-Michelin-star restaurant operates from the ground floor, alongside the Cellar Bar and the intimate No. 23 Cocktail Bar, so dinner rarely means leaving the building. There's a spa with sauna and steam room, a gym, and an 18-metre indoor pool for guests who want to swim rather than sightsee. Couples marry in the Georgian salons, up to eighty at a time, and staff switch between English, French, German, Italian, Polish, Portuguese and Spanish without missing a step. None of this suits anyone chasing glass-tower modernity or a big pool scene; the rooms are comfortable rather than vast, and pets aren't allowed. But for a traveller who wants a central address with a genuine art collection instead of hotel-lobby prints, and a kitchen worth the walk downstairs, The Merrion delivers something Dublin's other grand hotels only gesture at. Four Georgian townhouses joined into one 142-room hotel opposite Government Buildings, home to a private 19th- and 20th-century art collection and Patrick Guilbaud's two-Michelin-star kitchen. It suits travellers who want central Dublin with substance, not families chasing pool time or anyone bringing a pet.