The Cashel House Hotel might very well become your next home if you visit Cashel in Connemara, County Galway, on Ireland's west coast. I love to stay in beautiful houses. I guess you can say I'm a house junkie.

Cashel House is so very special. It has what I think are the most beautiful flowering grounds in all of Ireland – natural and peaceful. There, you'll see a walled garden – sometimes called the "Secret Garden – with rare trees and plants that include azaleas, heathers and dwarf rhododendrons. When I and my associates, Brinsley Matthews and Anne Sullivan, recently visited the winding garden, the flowers in bloom included purple irises as well as pink, yellow and white lupines. I would like to stay there throughout the summer, so I could enjoy all the different perennial and annual flowers to come.

The room I occupied at Cashel House was No. 41 on the garden level – a two-level accommodation with a sunken living room. One can recline in bed and relax while looking out upon the picturesque garden beyond – and enjoy total privacy, even with the curtains open.

Cashel House was visited by the late former British Prime Minister Harold McMillan and was the vacation haven for the late Gen. and Mrs. Charles de Gaulle, who spent two weeks of their Irish holiday there in 1969. I'm told that the actress Clare Bloom lives close by and, without a doubt, enjoys the gardens and the hospitality of Kay and Dermot McEvilly, who have owned the hotel since 1967.

For the enjoyment of those visiting Cashel House, the McEvillys and their son care for the property as only owners with passion would do. There are so many "soulless" hotels in the world these days, filled with boring mediocrity and the sameness of "formula" decorating and design. The McEvillys, on the other hand, offer to their guests all the personal appointments of a private residence.

The sunroom has pink flowers stenciled on white walls and comfortable Swedish-style chairs covered alternately in rose and pale-green damask, along with a joyous view of parts of the Secret Garden. Indeed, the flowers in the garden become part of the setting.

Cashel House has a "man's man" kind of woody bar as well as a sitting room, entrance parlor, library and dining room with a glass conservatory. The dining room walls are adorned in that beautiful Georgian turquoise blue with a carpeting of similar turquoise with soft aqua and white. The armless dining chairs, meanwhile, are covered in a soft aqua-blue velvet.

The dining tables are definitely not of the hotel formula – you know, the ones with tops covered with linen over padded plywood. In contrast, the tables in the conservatory in the dining room are of mahogany but in different sizes – some oval-top, some round and some square or rectangular. All are residence tables with pedestal bases, many of Georgian design, others with Sheraton-style bases.

The tables are set with white embroidered-edge placemats, duly starched. Napery matches the placemats, and the china is of bone with handsome edges – none of the thick-lipped, commercial-coffee-cup variety, and no unbreakable white Corningware, either! At Cashel House, the guest dines as if he or she were in a family home at tables set with candles, fine wine glasses and, naturally, cut flowers from the garden.

In this month of June, the wedding month, I recommend Cashel House as a setting for the perfect love affair or honeymoon. The couple can enjoy horseback riding, a visit to Kylemore Abbey, the Craft Shop at Moyard, The Golf Club at Ballyconneely, the Slyne Head Lighthouse and the Ballynahinch Fishery. And there are always those hand-in-hand walks along the coast on roads that see few or no automobiles.

You'll certainly appreciate visiting this historical residence, which was built in 1840 by Geoffrey Emerson and set among 50 acres of award-wining gardens and woodland walks. And you'll enjoy sitting by one of those turf-and-log fires that are famed all over Ireland.

When in Ireland, if you are in a decorating mood, look for a set of Irish linen hand-embroidered placemats and napkins that you can use in your own home for table accessorizing. Ireland offers a variety of decorative items for the American home, including Waterford and Galway Irish crystal – timeless in design and offering a wide variety of hand-blown colorful art-glass pieces. You'll also find lots of imaginative art, paintings and tapestries.

If you are traveling through Galway, do stop at the Bold Gallery on Merchants Road and Augustine Street to see the landscape-genre work of Ireland's hottest young artist, Brian MacMahan. The tradition of landscape painting in Ireland has endured over so many years. McMahon's work includes imagery of rural landscapes and seaboards. Check Bold Art Gallery out at the Web site www.boldartgallery.com.

And for those interested in a lovely visit to Cashel House that you'll remember forever, log on to the Web site

www.cashel-house-hotel.com, or telephone from America 011-353-95-31001 and ask for Dermot or Kay. Tell them that Carleton sent you!