Page 90 - WINE DINE AND TRAVEL WINTER 2024 SCOTLAND

at our new resort, the 220-acre Castlemar‐
tyr Resort, we were all slightly tipsy. I won‐
dered if the whiskey made me hallucinate
because as we entered the Castlemartyr’s
driveway, I thought I saw the ruins of a
13th-century castle. It was not a mirage.
The Knights Templar and later, Sir Walter
Raleigh stayed here.
Greeted in the lobby with champagne,
we were whisked off by golf cart to a field
on property. Four staff members dressed
in gym clothes were waiting to teach us
hurling, a cross between lacrosse and field
hockey. Said to be the fastest game in the
world, Irish kids start playing when they’re
five years old. They showed us how to
scoop up the hardball-sized sliotar with a
stick called a hurley, then whack it using
the hurley like a baseball bat. None of us
could master either feat, so we asked them
to play a mini match instead. Watching
their enormous speed and agility, I knew I
would not be taking up hurling in this life‐
time.
Much more relaxing was walking Castle‐
martyr’s grounds and staring transfixed by
the old castle ruins, not the only ones we’d
see on our trip. Ireland has roughly
30,000 castles and ruins, most dating from
the 12th to 16th centuries. At least once a
day, we’d pass a former castle, jump out of
the car, and take photos.
Dinner was at Castlemartyr’s two-star
Michelin restaurant, Terre, which began in
the Terre garden where the head gardener
pointed out rhubarb and squashes as large
as baseball bats and let us taste the deli‐
ciously sweet tomatoes right off the vine.
Much of the garden’s edible bounty was in‐
cluded in our tasting menu, beginning in
the Terre open kitchen. Chef Vincent Crepel
created mouth-watering hors d'oeuvres
which we happily devoured before adjourn‐
ing to the candle-lit dining room for end‐
less mouth-watering courses. With all this
delicious food, I didn’t understand how I

90 WINE DINE & TRAVEL MAGAZINE WINTER 2025