Sheedy’s

The Sheedy family’s old farmhouse on the edge of the Burren’s dramatic karst landscape is today a smart hotel and restaurant. Sheedy hospitality stretches back to the 1930s, when Alice Sheedy first welcomed paying guests. Today grandson John, with his wife, Martina, are natural hosts. When our inspectors visited, Martina showed them to a ‘spacious, squeaky-clean’ bedroom with ‘a mix of antiques and contemporary pieces’, comfy armchairs and ‘well-stocked’ tray. The bathroom had a bath and power shower, Gilchrist & Soames toiletries. A pot of tea awaited in a downstairs lounge with ‘squashy sofas round a crackling fire’. At night in the dual-aspect dining room, John uses ‘locally sourced ingredients in generous portions’, with herbs and vegetables from the garden, in dishes such as St Tola goat’s curd salad, beetroot, asparagus and hazelnut dressing, or slow-cooked Burren lamb with herb gravy. Breakfast on porridge or apricots cooked in Cointreau and cinnamon, with perhaps a toasted bagel with salmon from the local smokery before heading out for a walk on the Burren Way or to marvel at the Cliffs of Moher.