20 beautiful hotels in Ireland
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Gorey
Lavish, ‘prompt and very attentive’ hospitality is the order of the day at this ‘distinguished’ family-run hotel in an ‘imposing’ Regency house surrounded by 36 acres of grounds.
Rathmullan House
Rathmullan
Lawns run down to a sandy beach on the shores of Lough Swilly from this engaging country house, built for a Bishop in 1760 and enlarged by serial extensions.
Temple House
Ballymote
Sheep crop the grasses in the parkland around Roderick and Helena Perceval’s classical Georgian mansion overlooking a lake and a ruined 13th-century castle – a working private estate rather than romantic Grand Tour fantasy.
Gregans Castle Hotel.
Ballyvaughan
On the Wild Atlantic Way, with views across the ‘dramatic’ Burren Hills to Galway Bay, ‘delightful’ Gregans Castle is ‘the epitome of understated country-house hotel luxury,’ writes a Guide regular this year.
Enniscoe House
Castlehill
‘As the owners claim, this is neither B&B nor hotel, but a family home that welcomes guests,’ writes a Guide insider, of this ‘classic Georgian manor house, deep in the countryside’ beneath Mount Nephin.
Rosleague Manor
Letterfrack
‘It doesn’t seem to change,’ says a reader who first stayed some 30 years ago at this pink-washed Georgian country house ‘in a glorious setting’, with gardens bordering Ballinakill Bay.
Roundwood House
Mountrath
Infused with warmth, Paddy and Hannah Flynn’s Georgian mansion beneath the Slieve Bloom mountains may be a little lived in, but few hotels can touch it for character.
Currarevagh House
Oughterard
Reputedly Ireland’s longest running hotel under one family’s ownership: its ‘true country house’ atmosphere and easy access to rural pursuits draw back guests year after year.
Coopershill
Riverstown
A beautiful formal garden greets visitors to the O’Haras’ otherwise laid-back and informal Georgian mansion.
Ballymaloe House
Shanagarry
‘Remains a flagship in its idiom,’ writes a trusted reader, of this legendary enterprise, centred on a wisteria-draped Georgian house grafted on to the remains of a Norman castle.
Ballyvolane House
Castlelyons
A mildly bohemian air filters through the Green family’s wisteria-hung Georgian country house hotel, bordered by bluebell woods.
Mornington House
Multyfarnham
‘In rolling countryside with views of mountains and hills’ Anne and Warwick O’Hara run their 18th-century mansion–turned–guest house with a commitment and enthusiasm that delighted our inspectors.
The Mustard Seed at Echo Lodge
Ballingarry
‘Tranquil air of relaxed calm’, ‘Good for the soul’, ‘An oasis of peace’. We hear perennial praise for John Edward Joyce’s country house hotel.
Castle Leslie
Glaslough
Scottish Baronial meets Italian Renaissance in Samantha Leslie’s Victorian pile on one of the last great Irish castle estates still owned by the founding family.
Viewmount House
Longford
A long drive through parkland brings guests to this Georgian mansion beside the golf course on the edge of town, where Beryl and James Kearney are the ‘warm and friendly’ hosts.
Lorum Old Rectory
Bagenalstown
Afternoon tea is taken by a turf fire in the drawing room of this ‘beautiful’ 19th-century granite rectory at the foot of the Blackstairs mountains.
Newforge House
Magheralin
A Georgian house in extensive grounds near the Lagan river, John and Louise Mathers’s ‘first-rate’ guest house is an ‘outstanding’ place to stay.
Hilton Park
Clones
It is easy to see why this 18th-century Italianate country house is known locally as The Castle.
Inch House
Thurles
‘Warm and charming in its small-scale grandeur’, the Egan family’s Georgian mansion sits amid a cereals farm in Tipperary countryside.
Stella Maris
Ballycastle
Guests can ‘watch the dolphins frolicking in the bay’ from the conservatory of Frances Kelly-McSweeney’s hotel in a ‘dramatically beautiful’ setting overlooking Bunatrahir Bay on the Wild Atlantic Way.