‘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.

‘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.

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.

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.

Emerging from the landscape, Ruairí and Marie-Thérèse de Blacam’s sustainably run stone-and-glass restaurant-with-suites is a design-led sanctum in a remote Gaelic stronghold.

A tree’s length from medieval Carlingford, this pretty Georgian house sits in mature walled gardens.

‘Exceptional service’ and ‘well-crafted food’ characterise this 19th-century flax mill on the Wild Atlantic Way, now home to Susan and Derek Alcorn’s friendly restaurant-with-rooms.