USP Dirty fun in the hot mud chamber where two can cover each other with three types of clay.

AMBIENCE Happily free of pretentious posturing, even if the music occasionally wanders into the realms of whales’ seduction calls. A sleepy and picturesque area characterised by pretty villages such as Ballybrittas or Emo, where you could stop for a pint without having to worry about the relentless craic that afflicts more tourist-conscious parts of Ireland.

EXPERIENCE After washing off the clay, you can gently warm up again in various heated and steamed rooms before plunging into the open-air hydropool, where powerful jets of warm water massage and pummel you. Also take golf lessons on their pristine 18-hole course.

FOOD Contemporary, French Mediterranean cuisine and an Irish bar.

IN CROWD Affluent Dubliners and golf aficionados.

WALLET WATCH The Heritage offers hotel packages such as the Mozart, which costs from £192 per person for one nights’ bed, breakfast and dinner, and either a one-hour spa treatment with use of the facilities, 18 holes on the course, or a one-hour lesson and use of the indoor driving range and putting green.

NEED TO KNOW Killenard, Co Laois (00 353 502 45500; www.theheritage.com)

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