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.

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

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.

‘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.

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.

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.

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.

From the stained-glass windows and airy, white-linened bedrooms to the bone china cups at tea, there’s an old-world charm at this creeper-covered former rectory, on the outskirts of a Georgian port town on the Wild Atlantic Way.

In a colourful coastal town between the mountains and the sea, Paddy and Julia Foyle’s good-value B&B above the harbour is in a jauntily refurbished building, minutes from the town centre.

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.

‘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.

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.

‘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.

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.

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