Moyglare Manor is dilapidated decadence at its finest, and that’s not necessarily a good thing. This place is over the top. It is the full monty. If they’d let you come in the front door, you’d get an almost jaw-dropping confrontation. Too bad, because you have to go in the side entrance.

The manor is situated in beautiful horse country. The approach to the house is a lovely, peaceful drive through grass and trees, but the house itself is situated on top of a gravel parking lot. You enter the house through a junked up side entrance, and down a narrow hallway covered with rug on top of rug on top of rug. Beware—every square inch of this place is covered with what-not, knick-knacks, and bric-a-brac. If you love this, hey, go for it.

The staff was very cordial and tried to accommodate. The exception to this was when my husband informed the staff that our bathroom’s toilet ran on for 20 minutes after flushing, and the gentleman pretended he’d look into it, but did nothing.

Our room was definitely too much to take, especially for about $300 a night. If you like pink and green, and pink and green, and pink and green florals, this room is for you. If you like your room disheveled, this room’s for you. I don’t think there was a single lampshade (all pink and fringe-tasseled) in our room, or in the whole house for that matter, that hung straight. It looked like a storm had blown over. Decorations included plastic flowers and a plastic dressed-up baby doll. The bed did have clean sheets, and was comfortable, but the furniture was more than old; it was really worn and down-at-the-heels. And on either side of the bed, you stepped out onto a turquoise, multi-hued, shag area rug that looked like it was from the 60’s and hadn’t been cleaned since then. The bathroom had the aforementioned plumbing problem, and a piece of something that had broken off from somewhere else was propped up in the corner. No picture hung straight.

Whew.

One of the ironies of this place is that plastic decorations coincide with two absolutely masterful oil paintings in the stairwell. The house obviously is full of other wonderful antiques as well. The main room of the house is glowingly red. There is a red light bulb placed beneath a piece of furniture to enhance that glow, but darned if I don’t think the room is alive and would glow on its own.

There is an over-the-top piano bar and dining room. If you want to splurge for dinner in absolute, if cluttered, opulence, this is your place. My spouse and I chose not to, because dinner was fixed price at about $80 apiece and you could certainly spend much more. Beware if you are vegetarian, because the vegetarian entrée offering was a vegetable wrap with mozzarella cheese, definitely not what I’d want for my 80 bucks.

Breakfast is served in a side dining area, actually beautiful in an old way. The wait staff was nice and they’ll cook what you’d like. A couple of old gents were at an adjacent table discussing equine genetics and other scholarly topics and gossip, so that was interesting.

This place is worn out and really odd but fun. Tread if you wish. It looks better on the website than in person. It’s not cheap.

One word of advice - if you are relying on the directions to Moyglare from their website, beware. The distances are given in miles (an indication of when they were written, or possibly in keeping with the age of the hotel!) and the sign to turn off the main road is so small as to be difficult to see by day, and virtually impossible by night.
So after a longer tour of the rural roads of Kildare than we had intended, we eventually arrived at dusk to find the turf fires being stoked, a lovely warm atmosphere throughout the hotel and an equally warm welcome. All the rooms in the manor house are filled with period furniture, and probably look much the same now as they did fifty years ago. Dinner was excellent, but if you want nouvelle cuisine and delicate portions, this is not the place for you! Beautifully cooked and certainly substantial. The bedroom was almost perfect, although whilst the bed was very comfortable it was certainly not designed for a tall person. Breakfast was hot and good, everything cooked to order.
If you are looking for a calm and tranquil oasis, within easy reach of Dublin, this the ideal place. Just remember to bring a good map.

We arrived on a miserable Saturday afternoon to this beautiful hotel. Straight away we checked up and were brought up to our suite at the front of the house. It had the biggest 4-poster bed ever. Nearly had to be lifted up onto it!
We then went downstairs to the have some coffee and sat in the entrance hall of the house, which might sound strange place to relax but its huge and lovely fires burning.
We headed back upstairs to change for dinner booked for 7.30pm. We ordered our choices while sitting in the sunroom looking out at the lovely fields & the pouring rain outside.
Dinner was out of this world. We took nearly 3 hours to eat it, as the atmosphere is so relaxing and there's so much of this lovely food. After dinner we sat by the fire drinking wine and listening to the lovely pianist playing the piano.
The house is decorated so lovely, and the staff are so friendly and welcoming.
The lady running everything even brought us down to the basements to show us the old kitchens and impressive wine cellar.
Afterwards we retired back up our suite and had a wonderful nights sleep.
I'm looking forward to going back again soon.

The following morning we booked the hotel again for our wedding reception. Its a perfect location if you only want 20 or so close family and friends to come and enjoy the hotel & its wonderful food.

This is a gem of a hotel. You feel like you have stepped back in time to a more civilsed age. I have eaten in the restaurant many times and each meal has been fantastic. I have stayed there on 2 occasions (one of them my wedding night as we held the reception there). The rooms really are amazing, especially the bridal suite.
It is truly a very romantic place and the service is excellent. You could spend the evening wandering around the reception rooms looking at all the paintings and ornaments but the turf fire in the bar is too tempting.