If you had a hotel at the moment you'd be in need of a good-sized injection of optimism. Two years ago the summer season was spoiled by an outbreak of foot and mouth, last year it suffered from the aftermath of September 11th, and this year - should there be no war - is the one that's supposed to put things right. But hoteliers have be realists as well as optimists and if there is a war, a boom in tourism isn't going to be one of the effects. There has to be a plan 'B' that is something other than reliance on optimism. Many hotels are now turning to their local market to make up for the falling numbers from abroad.

This week I was a part of a group of journalists who went to the Sheen Falls Lodge just outside Kenmare. The hotel, like The Park in Kenmare itself, has been a magnet for the kind of tourists everyone wants: the kind with a lot of disposable income. If there's one thing that strikes you the moment you walk into Sheen Falls Lodge it's the level of finish. Everything you look at, whether it's a light fitting or a curtain, reeks of quality and expense, and even before you use a bathroom you already know that the water will blast out of the showerhead just like it does in America. It may be rural Ireland, but the plumbing is very twenty-first century.

Before a few of us went out clay pigeon shooting we were shown to our rooms. 'You're in 209', I was told as we climbed the stairs, 'it's a really nice room.' 'I bet you say that to all the guests,' I said as I was shown into a perfectly enormous room with a bed the size of a football pitch. It had something in common with Dublin's O'Connell Bridge - it was much wider than it was long. Windows on two sides of the room overlook the falls, which on this vaguely sunny afternoon trickled gently across the rocks with all the urgency of a Spanish siesta, before quietly entering the estuary known as the Kenmare River. Checking out the vast marble-paved bathroom, I decided the Jacuzzi would have to wait till after the clay pigeon shoot.

There's a big variety of things to do here, in the lobby a sign lists the activities for you, ranging from the ubiquitous horse-riding to the less commonly encountered Vintage Cars. Some of our group went a-walking, others came shooting and others seemed tunnel-visioned about a session in the spa. Chacun a son gout, I enjoyed hitting the occasional clay pigeon before returning to the hotel to get ready for our dinner.

The dining room is called La Cascade, and as you might have guessed from its name it overlooks the falls. The room is on two levels, the lower level being alongside the windows. It's a long room, its principal feature being the spectacular view of the floodlit falls. If you'd been brought here blindfolded you'd know you were in a hotel dining room - big upholstered chairs with arm rests, large tables and plenty of space between them give it away. The dinner menu has four courses, carries many choices and has a set price of €65. Eight starters, seven main courses and eight desserts are on offer, among them dishes such as Sheen Falls's very own smoked salmon from the Kenmare river, a terrine of foie gras and duck confit, native oysters with Beluga caviar, fillet of John Dory and monkfish with hazelnuts.

The wine list is impressive in length, it's some thirty pages long, cataloguing wines from all over the world. It takes a while to read, and if your budget is limited you'd need to scan it very carefully indeed to find the wines that are under €30. The mark up is steeper than normal, but to offset that you're in a five-star hotel and Jean-Bernard the sommelier can really help you through the list.

I started with the ravioli of oxtail, which came with a little foie gras and a tempura of vegetables. For my taste this was very well judged, the oxtail well-flavoured in its little raviolo pillow, but more importantly the taste of foie gras alongside was enough to delight the palate, but not so much as to overextend the liver. Beside me Joanne Hegarty was enjoying pan-seared Valentia island scallops which came beautifully presented with clams. Very tasty indeed, the tang of the Chartreuse sauce just right. Next we had a lime granita, which worked perfectly as a palate-cleanser prior to the main course; grilled veal fillet served with veal sweetbreads.

All this sounds like a huge volume of food, but in fact it wasn't. Each dish was carefully and prettily presented, but with portions tending toward daintiness. The main course made this point well; around the central tournedo of fillet were tiny pieces of sweetbreads, perhaps the tastiest morsels of all the offal dishes. Enough to gratify, but not so much as to overpower.

Some slivers of an aged Milleens with home-made biscuits and then a dark chocolate mousse on a pecan brownie, finished off an excellent meal, accompanied by a very fine late-picked Gewurztraminer from Scherb. In all, I felt that I'd eaten a very competently produced meal, well-judged in both flavours and portions. After a little Armagnac I went to bed feeling very contented indeed. I awoke the following morning to a dull roar outside my bedroom window. With bleary eyes I made my way to my balcony to investigate. It must have rained during the night, and rained heavily, because the peaceful little trickle over the rocks had become a white-water wall of thundering, crashing, cascading water with a violence that bordered on the majestic. Not a morning for a walk I thought, and retired indoors for one last dip in the Jacuzzi.