We are contemplating at trip to Ireland in the fall. I have medication that must be refrigerated. In your experience, would I have access to refrigeration (either in the room or in the hosts' kitchen) at most B&Bs?

B&Bs are houses - they have kitchens. VERY few will have fridges in bdrms.

Unless the landlady is a psycho of some sort I can't imagine one not letting you put a small package of medicine in her refrigerator. They are usually very accomodating - heck, I've had B&Bs store fish I caught.

Your answer is what I was thinking. I just wanted to hear it confirmed.

Does anyone have experiences with refrigeration in hotels? Are minibars common--that type of small refrigerator will do the trick.

Many small hotels and guest houses are very similar to B&Bs. But in these larger sorts of places more people will be in/out of the kitchen and you are not always dealing w/ the owner like you are in a B&B. So to be on the safe side you might want to pick up a small cooler in a petrol station to fill w/ ice just in case. You probably won't need it but if you do, you'll have it at the ready.

Large city centre hotels might be a problem. I'd just verify w/ the hotel before booking that there are in-room refrigerators - or use a cooler.

I can't see a small hotel allowing you to keep medication in their food fridges because of the risk of contamination of food (I'm pretty sure this would break the health & hygeine law too). You'll have to check that there is a refridgerated minibar in your room or pre-book small B&Bs and ask them, as I agree that they may be more accomodating. But they still might say no because of mixing up food storage and medicine storage. I know we all do it at home but it's different when you are catering commercially. They could get in real trouble if they got a spot check from environmental health.