InterContinental Dublin

The Hotel

The hotel opened in 2001 as the Four Seasons Dublin — Four Seasons's first and only Irish property, developed by a consortium led by Bernard McNamara on a piece of land beside the Royal Dublin Society Showgrounds in Ballsbridge that had previously been a clay tennis club. The architects designed the building to reference the brick-and-stone scale of the surrounding Edwardian and Victorian Ballsbridge red-brick streetscape, set behind a formal entrance court with a porte-cochère and surrounded by approximately two acres of garden. The Four Seasons operated the hotel until late 2014; ownership transitioned through the Anglo Irish Bank receivership during the 2008–2014 banking-crisis period, and in October 2014 the property rebranded to InterContinental Dublin under IHG management. A comprehensive renovation of the bedrooms and public rooms followed in 2016–2017.

The 197 rooms and suites are arranged across five floors, with the better categories — Premium, Club InterContinental, and the Suites — on the upper floors looking either west across the formal gardens to the city centre or east across to the RDS and the Aviva Stadium beyond. Standard Classic Doubles run around 35–40 square metres — by some distance the largest standard-room format among the Dublin five-stars and a deliberate choice in the original 2001 Four Seasons specification. Premium Doubles are larger again; the Club InterContinental floor occupies the top floor with private lounge access. The named suites — the Presidential Suite (the largest at over 200 square metres), the Royal Suite, and a number of one- and two-bedroom suites — are the headline units. Bathrooms are full marble; the 2016–17 renovation refreshed every soft furnishing and replaced lighting throughout.

The Reading Room is the lobby afternoon-tea lounge — a club-library-styled high-ceilinged room with leather seating, a working fireplace, and the city's most reliable seated tea outside the Lord Mayor's Lounge at the Shelbourne and The Gallery at the Westbury. Seasons Restaurant is the all-day dining room (the breakfast operation here is the strongest in any Dublin five-star). The Lobby Lounge is the cocktail-and-aperitif venue. The hotel's standout amenity is the spa: a 14-metre indoor pool — the largest of any central-Dublin hotel — alongside an 18-metre vitality pool, full thermal suite, sauna, steam, and twelve treatment rooms. The fitness centre is open 24 hours and is comprehensively kitted; tennis is available on the adjacent RDS courts by arrangement.

Position is the central proposition for travellers whose Dublin brief is residential, embassy, or sporting rather than the historic centre. Ballsbridge is the leafy embassy quarter on the south side of the Liffey: the United States, German, British (in Sandyford), South African, Argentinian, Polish, Brazilian, and Israeli residences and missions all sit within ten minutes on foot, with the Aviva Stadium six minutes, the RDS Showgrounds across the road, and Sandymount Strand fifteen minutes. From Ballsbridge it is a fifteen-minute walk or five-minute taxi to St Stephen's Green, Trinity, and Grafton Street. For travellers comparing Dublin five-stars, the InterContinental is the residential-quarter version of The Lanesborough at Hyde Park Corner or the off-Tiergarten address Hotel Adlon Kempinski in Berlin.

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