A ruined Knights Templar castle sits beside a mile-long lake in the grounds belonging to Roderick and Helena Perceval's impressive classical mansion.

There isn’t a castle, but there is a 15th-century tower house, built for the ‘Prince of the Burren’, the unearthly glaciokarst landscape said to have inspired J R R Tolkien.

A single-track road meanders through woodlands to this Georgian mansion at the foot of lonely Nephin mountain, overlooking Lough Conn, where Susan Kellett and son DJ are 'welcoming hosts'.

George the peacock struts some of the 40-acre grounds of this rural Regency-style country house, run as a hotel for more than four decades by the Bowe family (Relais & Châteaux).

Second-generation owners Mark and Mary Wheeler continue a 60-year tradition of welcoming guests to their Georgian-cum-Victorian house in landscaped grounds and gardens, with a sandy beach on Lough Swilly.

When farmer’s wife Myrtle Allen opened a restaurant in her Georgian farmhouse back in 1964, she did not dream that she was starting a quiet revolution in Irish food, or that her home would become the epitome of country house hotel style.

Amid gardens and parkland, with bluebell woods and trout lakes, this Georgian country house, remodelled in the 19th century, is not a hotel but a family home, say third-generation owners Justin and Jenny Green.

‘This is such a unique and interesting place,’ writes a reader, of the Leslie clan’s 19th-century mansion on a vast estate with gardens, lakes and woodland. ‘I felt like I was in a fairy tale.’

It is the attention to detail that so impresses at Beryl and James Kearney’s classical Georgian rebuild of a 17th-century house, set in themed gardens with a pond and orchard.

A stay at Lorum is like being invited as a family friend to enjoy the antique-filled country house, candlelit dinners and mountain views.

In shades of heather and bracken, Slieve Foy rises behind the Carroll family’s listed Georgian house.

Within walking distance of Dublin’s many attractions, this 19th-century schoolhouse by the Grand Canal is today a hotel with a restaurant and a ‘very jolly’ bar.

Overlooking Ballinakill Bay, and tucked among private woodland, this fine-looking, family-run hotel offers rooms and service as serene as its surroundings.

Put together a Georgian mansion, rambling grounds, creative cooking served by serenading chefs, and big-hearted hosts, and you understand Roundwood’s allure.

A mile-long avenue leads across the River Unshin to Simon and Christina O’Hara’s Georgian country house in 500 acres, with a deer park, venerable oaks and exhibitionist peacocks.

Built in 1734, burnt down in 1803, rebuilt over 15 years and remodelled in the 1870s in the style of an Italian palazzo, the ancestral home of the Maddens is the perfect place for an escapist Irish country house weekend.

Everything is peachy at this apricot-washed Victorian mansion, now a lavishly furnished hotel and fine-dining restaurant, in landscaped grounds with orchard and working kitchen garden.

Above tiered gardens, this large, modern hotel with an artistic bent takes in an impressive panorama over the city and the harbour.