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’.

‘The wonderful views of Lough Corrib, combined with warm, easy-going hospitality, make this a place in which we could stay for ages.’

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.

‘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’.

‘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 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.

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

A traditional Irish country house atmosphere fills this creeper-clad Georgian mansion overlooking the quay of a heritage town on the shores of Clew bay.

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

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