Ashling Hotel

We discovered the hotel online last year as being near to Heuston Station. It is indeed close, right across the river from it. Heuston is a train, tram, city bus, and airport bus point and it’s trains serve the West and south of Ireland. So the hotel really becomes a hub for tourists. Kind of upscale, nice rooms and beds, and the rooms we’ve had face across the Liffey River and overlook a small park. Bathtub, rain shower head, big towels, two sinks, and an electric towel warmer.

The hotel overlooks a small park with a reclining statue in a fountain dedicated to Anna Livia, a character in James Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake and personification of the river. The fountain is often a target for bottles of washing up liquid (Dawn, Joy, etc.) and is locally known as the Floozy in the Jacuzzi.

The view to the southeast is of the Guinness operation. It is yu-uge. Bottom right beyond the river is the yard for receiving empty kegs.

We like this view equally. Guinness and Smithwicks.

The hotel’s mascot is dreadlocked sheep, both outdoors

and indoors.

The view to the Southwest is to Heuston Station and Kilmainham where the infamous prison is located. The evening lighting is the colors of the Irish Republic flag.

Aside from the liquid velvet that is Irish beer and whiskey, along with others on offer, the hotel offers a sumptuous, if not downright fulsome, breakfast buffet. What we have been looking forward to, though, is the beef and Guinness pie topped with puff pastry and accompanied by chunky chips and shot of Guinness to wake up the pie’s underlying rosemary and thyme herbed stew. Also huge.

Because it is at a tourist hub, the hotel gets quite a bit of traffic from the airport, bleary-eyed transatlantic travelers hoping for an early check-in and a nap. We were such too, but the hotel has a noon check-out and a 4 PM check-in. So we often see couples and young families snoozing on the lobby and bar sofas as we did, waiting for the relief of a room and a bed to call their own.