What’s it like staying at Caisleáin Óir Hotel in Donegal, Ireland?

After taking the Amapola Flyg Fokker 50 from Dublin to Donegal, my friends and I took our pre-arranged Taxi to the Caisleáin Óir Hotel. I stayed at this hotel on my own back in 2017 and was looking forward to staying again.

It is located 4km from Donegal Airport on the Wild Atlantic Way, flanking a shallow bay in Annagry. This is the Irish speaking part of Ireland, but everyone also speaks English of course.

A Triple Room

I reserved a triple room, which comprised of one double bed and a single bed, with a view over the bay. This cost €129 including breakfast, which between three was extremely good value. On arrival we checked in and were up to our room in minutes.

For once, I forgot to take any photos of the room. Happily all the photos online on Booking.com are identical to what I experienced, and so we have the pictures above. The bed was comfortable and we all slept well.

Dinner Is Served

After spending some time outside having a few drinks at tables set out beside the bay, we headed in for dinner. Last time I was here, the food was excellent and as they have the same chef, the food didn’t disappoint.

Food once again didn’t disappoint, and we finished almost everything. I left some of my seafood gratin as there was just so much of it! We had an Italian red and a white to accompany the meal, and followed it up with a small dessert.

Breakfast

Breakfast runs from 8am to 10am, so we exhumed our sorry corpses from our beds around 9am and headed down to the bar. The bar is a lively place in the hotel and a focal point for the community, as there were always people in there eating and drinking.

There is nothing wrong with a full Irish and one needs it for the soakage. That set us up nicely for the day, and after that we hung around in the bar playing board games and card games while having the occasional pint. It was then back to the airport for us to head back to Dublin.

Overall Thoughts

It’s rare I stay in the same place more than once, but I was happy to do so here. First of all, it is the closest hotel to Donegal Airport at Carrickfinn, costing €10 one way in a taxi to get there. Secondly, the food is plentiful and very delicious!

Virtually all of the staff there are quite friendly and happy to do anything for you. One thing to note is you can’t charge drinks to your room, you need to pay as you go, but that is no big deal. The hotel can be quite busy as there were people in their ballroom and all over the place the first night, a really nice buzz all round.

Have you stayed in the Caisleáin Óir Hotel or been to Donegal before? Thank you for reading and if you have any comments or questions, please leave them below.

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Room, bed, bar and restaurant image by Caisleáin Óir Hotel.