• Historic Luxury in Irelandirish flag and castle image by Shannon Workman from Fotolia.com
  
  The "six-star" hotel is a nod to over-the-top luxury--and a marketing hook. No travel guides currently rate hotels at six stars, but some elite establishments have claimed the term. In Ireland, the top hotels are raising the bar for luxury with silk wallcoverings, customized personal services, name chefs, helipads and friendly resident hounds to borrow. Ireland's spectacular hotel architecture tends toward the castellated, and its rich layers of history mean that pampered guests might have a falconer, instead of a butler, at their service.
  
  

The Ritz-Carlton Powerscourt Hotel, County Wicklow (outside Dublin)

• The Powerscourt actually bills itself as a "six-star hotel" and claims that distinction rests on its marble baths with Rainforest showers, Frette linens and featherbeds, private spa suites, 20 meter Swarovski crystal-lit indoor pool, open fireplaces, signature destination restaurant, championship golf courses, helicopter landing pad, 24-hour multilingual concierge service and complimentary overnight shoeshine. The hotel offers classic luxury with high speed Internet, interactive media, and fingertip control of lights, curtains and air-conditioning in rooms and suites---among other amenities. A garden view, high floor, king suite can cost as much as $2589 per week night as of May 2010.
  
  Ritz-Carlton Powerscourt Hotel
  Powerscourt Estate
  Enniskerry, Ireland
  +353-1-274-8888
  ritzcarlton.com
  
  

Castlemartyr Resort, County Cork

• At Castlemartyr, you can walk in the footsteps of Sir Walter Raleigh and Oliver Cromwell---or just indulge in some target archery, laser clay shooting, guided meditation and yoga, croquet, dog walking with the estate's Irish Setters, or nearby sailing, hiking, fishing, horseback riding---all arranged through the concierge. Tour Cobh port, where the Titanic set sail and visit the old White Star Line office building and a number of historic spots in town. Or spend a cool night around the hotel's fire pit in the castle ruins. The State Rooms in the hotel's seventeenth century Manor House have silk-lined walls, Rainforest showers, WiFi, touch-panel lighting and drapes, and LCD widescreen TVs. The holistic spa offers customized herbal treatments from Paris, and a separate spa pool in addition to the hotel's pool. The restaurants in the resort feature local, seasonal produce. Suites from $352 weeknights (May 2010). Presidential suite per night $3,700.
  
  Castlemartyr Resort
  Castlemartyr, County Cork
  Ireland
  +353-21-4219000
  castlemartyrresort.ie
  
  

Ashford Castle- County Mayo

• Ashford Castle-County Mayo provides luxury accommodations--each room and suite uniquely decorated--and a twenty-first century adaptation of thirteenth century chivalry. The first stone battlements were set in place in 1228 and the castle was expanded extravagantly by every subsequent owner. Today, guests can cast flies from a wooden skiff amidst swans on the lake abutting the castle, learn to fly a hawk in a falconry session (by appointment), see the estate grounds on horseback with a thoroughbred mount from the Equestrian Centre, shoot clay pigeons and arrows at the sporting clay and archery range, play tennis or golf, stroll in the hundreds of acres of gardens, book a private spa treatment, and dine under Waterford chandeliers. The Presidential suite is $1,250 nightly and suites are $564 per week night in May 2010 but there are a number of custom packages, including a family falconry package, advertised on the hotel's Website. Ashford was voted "Best Resort" in Ireland and "Second Best Resort" in Europe by "Conde Nast Traveler" in 2008.
  
  Ashford Castle
  Cong, County Mayo
  Ireland
  +353-94-9546003
  ashford.ie/index.php