Best hotels for walking in Ireland

The anticipation builds as you follow a half-mile drive through sheep-grazed pastures to Roderick and Helena Perceval’s 18th-century classical mansion, remodelled in 1864.

This ‘epitome of Irish country house hospitality’ overlooks Galway Bay, in the dramatic Burren landscape, said to have been the inspiration for Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings.

‘More comfortable home than guest house’, this classic Georgian house stands in deep countryside at the foot of Nephin mountain.

‘It was like going back into the past and being treated like guests in a private home’ for a reader this year after a stay at Kieran Thompson’s Georgian mansion overlooking the estuary and quay on Clew Bay.

Built for a bishop in about 1760, Rathmullan House has been a beacon of Donegal hospitality since the early ’60s.

Fifty-seven years after Myrtle Allen opened a restaurant in her home on her husband’s farm, her values are still articles of faith at this legendary country house hotel.

A house-party atmosphere prevails at Jenny and Justin Green’s Italianate mansion set amid romantic gardens and parkland.

Home to the O’Hara family since 1858, this Irish country manor house with its gardens and wooded grounds lies just outside the village, in a landscape of rolling hills and ancient forests.

There’s personality aplenty at this family-run B&B ‘stuffed with antiques and curios’ in a former Georgian harbourmaster’s house and three of its neighbours, overlooking Owenglin estuary.

The claim that Clan Leslie ‘can trace its ancestry back to Attila the Hun’ might give you pause, but fear not: the warmest Irish welcome awaits at this baronial-style Victorian pile on a 1,000-acre estate with three lakes and an equestrian centre.

The small town ‘wraps itself around’ Martina and John Sheedy’s peachy yellow hotel, on a hilltop with ‘lovely’ views of Clare ‘to catch the heart off guard and blow it open’, as the poet Seamus Heaney puts it.

This elegant 17th-century country house set among orchards and beautifully designed gardens ‘ticks every box’ for readers.

If the locally made grandfather clock in the hall is the beating heart of this Victorian rectory-turned-B&B in the Barrow river valley, hostess Bobbie Smith is the life and soul.

If murder holes in a 15th-century fortified tower hint at a want of hospitality, the welcome in the adjacent stone farmhouse could not be warmer.

A short stroll from the world’s oldest distillery, there are peat fires, cosy nooks, a ‘secret’ library and well-considered bedrooms at this amiable 17th-century coaching inn on the Causeway Coastal Route.

On the wooded shores of Lough Caragh, silent glades in the extensive gardens of this Irish sandstone-built manor house are ripe for discovery; hidden pathways open on to the water, and the mountains beyond.

A tree’s length from the medieval town, the Carroll family’s listed Georgian house sits within castellated walled gardens, with views of the mountains that surround.

Across the River Nore from the medieval town, Phil and Rhoda Nolan’s friendly B&B is well located for visiting Kilkenny’s castle and cathedral.

Four generations of Verity Butterfield’s family have lived in this ‘impressive’ Georgian house, with ‘divine’ views down rolling meadow to a spring-fed lough.

Discerning diners make a beeline for chef/patron Aidan McGrath’s 19th-century pub-with-rooms (the first in Ireland to win a Michelin star), which he runs with his partner, Kate, in a spa town on the edge of the Burren.

Built for the Earls of Courtown, this Regency-style, 19th-century dower house has been run as an ‘absolutely lovely’ hotel by the Bowe family for more than 40 years.

‘We returned after five years, and everything lived up to our recollection,’ says one trusted reviewer of this salmon-pink Georgian manor house overlooking Ballinakill Bay in wild Connemara.

There’s plenty of personality alongside the period furniture at this 18th-century Irish country house in parkland at the foot of the Slieve Bloom mountains: a library in the double-height stables is dedicated to the history of the evolution of civilisation, and dinner is served with a serenade from the ‘singing chef’.

A house-party atmosphere prevails at this country house in 180 acres of grounds on Lough Corrib, built in 1842 and run as a sporting lodge by owner Henry Hodgson’s great grandfather from 1890.

You get Irish country house living at its best at Simon and Christina O’Hara’s Georgian ancestral home, where fallow deer roam the 500-acre estate, with its woodland walks and a river for fishing.

The ancestral domain of the Madden family for almost three centuries, this grand Italianate mansion stands in pleasure grounds on an accredited wildlife estate.

This ‘splendid’ heritage hideaway in Ballingarry, where staff ‘fall over each other to be helpful’, is popular with Guide readers.

What appears on approach to be a white-painted bungalow with a belvedere turns out to be a Georgian country house hotel on a hillside overlooking Lahinch Bay.

A sea view was a prerequisite when the British Admiralty built this Victorian coastguard’s HQ, complete with gun turrets, overlooking Bunatrahir Bay on the rugged coast of County Mayo.

In ‘lovely’ grounds by the River Vartry, this rambling, ‘extremely comfy’ property enveloped in olde-worlde charm is a ‘special’ place, says a Guide reader this year.

History is in the walls of this ivy-clad Georgian country house, which stands in lawns and parkland in the Blackwater valley, surrounded by the stately trees that have looked over it for centuries.

A short bus ride from the city centre, this handsomely restored red-brick B&B is close to popular restaurants, shops and a leafy park.

In the embrace of mountains, this Victorian fishing lodge stands in ‘a spectacular position’ before a panorama of Lough Inagh.

At one with the elements, Ruairí and Marie-Thérèse de Blacam’s sustainably run restaurant-with-suites was designed to blend in to the landscape of its remote Aran island setting.

B&B guests find a fascinating collection of books and memorabilia behind the bright red door of Eugene and Gerardine Kielt’s elegant villa, a literary haven for Seamus Heaney fans.

‘A genuine sense of hospitality’ – and an interesting collection of local art – fill Una and Dermot Brennan’s ‘attractively priced’ hotel, in a pretty town between the Ring of Beara and the Ring of Kerry.

Within their working farm, Theresa and Albert Morrow’s rustic B&B yields a genuine welcome.