History hangs about Roderick and Helena Perceval’s Georgian mansion, approached via a drive through sheep-grazed parkland.

In the otherworldly limestone landscape of the Burren, with distant views across valley and mountain to Galway Bay, husband-and-wife team Simon Haden and Frederieke McMurray run their 18th-century manor house as an ‘absolutely top-rate hotel’.

From the Georgian steps of pale-pink Enniscoe House, take in the ‘enchanting view of Lough Conn shimmering through a break in the woods’.

‘Supremely comfortable in that unique Irish country house way’, this pink-washed Regency manor house on the shores of Ballinakill Bay continues to please, say Guide readers this year.

Peace and quiet surround the O’Hara family’s Georgian mansion, which stands in great expanses of woodland and pasture for sheep and red deer.

At the end of a mile-long drive through ‘an estate of great tranquillity and beauty’ stands Fred and Joanna Madden’s Italianate mansion.

‘Excellent all round.’ It is more than 50 years since farmer’s wife Myrtle Allen launched the modest restaurant that would burgeon into hotel, shop, café, cookery school and event space.

Approached up a long drive, this ‘beautifully maintained’ 18th-century country house stands in extensive grounds – ‘a delight tn the eye’.

The O’Hara family seat since 1858, this 18th-century house in ‘rolling countryside’ is run with ‘indomitable spirit’ by Warwick and Anne O’Hara.

‘Warm and charming in its small-scale grandeur’, the Egan family’s Georgian mansion sits amid a cereals farm in Tipperary countryside.

‘The Mustard Seed, with its great tradition of Irish hospitality, is in safe hands,’ says a Guide reader this year of a return visit to John Edward Joyce’s ‘lovely, charming’ restaurant-with-rooms.

‘Positively flourishing’, the Leslie family’s sprawling estate has remained in the hands of its founding family for nearly three and a half centuries.

In ‘cleverly designed, well-maintained gardens’ on the outskirts of town, Beryl and James Kearney’s Georgian mansion has ‘uninterrupted views’ of the surrounding land, and a ‘cheerful ambience’ within.

‘It is dramatically beautiful here, and totally tranquil.’

In a swaddle of green grounds unravelling towards the River Lagan, John and Louise Mathers are the ‘personable, totally customer-centred’ hosts of this ‘remarkable’ guest house.

‘Stylish, comfortable and attractively priced’, Una and Dermot Brennan’s family-run boutique hotel puts the emphasis on a ‘warm, friendly’ Kerry welcome.

A ‘country way of life’ is preserved at this traditional hotel on the edge of a village on the west Cork coast.

The vista stretches over open pastures from Paddy and Hannah Flynn’s Georgian mansion, standing in extensive grounds below the Slieve Bloom mountains.

Cast your sights across the suspension bridge from the heritage town, towards this much refurbished 17th-century fishing lodge.

In a village on the Wild Atlantic Way, this ‘friendly, well-run’ Victorian hotel has been owned by the Huggard family since 1915.

Between Lough Eske and the foothills of the Blue Stack mountains, Deirdre McGlone and Marc Gysling’s traditional hotel is run with heart.

A ‘lovely, peaceful spot’ embraced on all sides by spectacular mountains, the lake here offers unhurried respite – as fishing enthusiasts have known since the 1880s.

In large gardens, behind lovely old stone walls, this pretty Georgian house – with its family photographs, squashy sofas, antique French beds and claw-footed baths – is steps from medieval Carlingford’s old town gate.

In a Georgian country house beside the River Nore, Brede Thomas runs her elegant B&B with ‘real style and friendliness’.