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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

In Ballsbridge, a tree-lined residential district within walking distance of the centre, this 19th-century schoolhouse by the Grand Canal is today a hotel with a restaurant and a ‘very jolly’ bar.

In an elevated position, this large, modern hotel perches above tiered gardens, taking in an impressive panorama over the city and harbour.

‘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’.

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