Escape to Schull
Wednesday 22 June 2022
Schull spells summer with a capital S, and soon families will be packing everything into the boot and heading to the popular seaside town for July and August. It’s the sort of place where the living is easy, there’s lots of yacht talk, and everybody is chilled in a casually smart sort of way. The long Main Street, full of gift shops, cafés and bakeries, is a networking point each morning for mums while the sprogs are at their junior sailing courses. The last time I stayed, it was at the town’s only hotel, the Schull Harbour Hotel, back in autumn 2018, when I went down to review Rob Krawczyk and Elaine Fleming’s newly Michelin-starred Restaurant Chestnut in nearby Ballydehob. It was the infamous night Storm Callum hit Ireland and, having travelled gingerly to the restaurant and back in a taxi amid monumental gales and fallen trees, we arrived back into the hotel, which felt a bit like staying on board the Mary Celeste. We’d hardly seen anyone there at all, even on checking in, but at 3am, with a power cut and everything plunged into darkness, there was no sign of any night porter or life at all, and we felt like jumping overboard.
Anyway, the Schull Harbour Hotel has just reopened under the new ownership of Ciaran Fitzgerald’s superb Kinsale-based Blue Haven Collection, so I made my way to Schull post-haste.
lucindaosullivan.com
First Published In The Sunday Independent