A half-mile avenue meanders through parkland to Roderick and Helena Perceval’s classical mansion overlooking the ivy-clad ruins of a Knights Templar castle on a lake.

‘Country house luxury’ abounds in this Georgian mansion, run by owners Simon Haden and Frederieke McMurray as a luxury hotel.

Approached through 40 acres of manicured grounds embracing woodland, lake and lawns, the Bowe family’s ‘ambitious, guest-centred hotel’ occupies an ‘imposing Regency house with sympathetic modern addition’.

Opened as a sporting lodge by owner Henry Hodgson’s great grandfather in 1890, this Victorian country house is surely Ireland’s longest-standing hotel under family ownership.

‘Utter comfort – a fire lit after breakfast in the drawing room, drinks from the bar when needed.’ An endorsement from a regular visitor, following another stay at this family-run hotel.

With a seven-a-side soccer pitch, glamping tents, Bertha’s Revenge Gin distilled in a converted cattle shed, and breakfast served until noon, this is no run-of-the-mill hotel.

A ‘splendidly labyrinthine’ Victorian pile overlooking a lake, this castle in name only is Ireland’s brilliant riposte to the corporate blandness of many modern hotels.

‘In a stunning location’ overlooking Lahinch Bay, Antoin O’Looney’s small hotel is upgraded from the Shortlist this year, on the urging of a reader who delighted in all that she found.

A stone farmhouse abutting a 15th-century castle, at the heart of a working dairy farm, is run as a guest house by Jack and Kathleen Mernagh.

Small wonder visitors linger at this inviting, creeper-covered Georgian mansion on the Clew Bay shoreline.

In a magical place on the shores of Lake Caragh, a serene hotel in a Victorian-style manor. Its name translates as ‘Hill of the Fairies’, a tree-covered knoll nearby.

In the Blackwater valley, visitors to this fine, ivy-clad Georgian country house are invited to stay ‘as if with friends’ by the welcoming Sharp Bolster family.

Restored with flair, Regina Gibson and Thomas Coyle’s ivy-hung former rectory is a warm and welcoming outpost on the Wild Atlantic Way.

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

A library in the stables, dedicated to the history of the evolution of civilisation, is a unique selling point, but there is much more to enjoy at Paddy and Hannah Flynn’s Georgian mansion in parkland beneath the Slieve Bloom mountains.

Approached through rolling deer-nibbled pastureland, ‘gracious’, welcoming Simon and Christina O’Hara provide an ‘immensely enjoyable’ slice of Irish country house living at their Georgian pile in Yeats country.

Reached by a mile-long drive, Fred and Joanna Madden’s grand Italianate country house stands in ‘an estate of great beauty’, with working farm, golf, lakes for fishing and wild swimming.

‘We were charmed by the hotel and its attentive staff.’ Guide regulars declared John Edward Joyce’s country house hotel ‘in a class of its own’ in 2019, with praise for the man himself: ‘Mr Joyce has a gift for hospitality.’

‘Meticulously’ renovated and richly furnished, Michael McMahon and John Bentley-Dunn’s house in the Boyne valley ‘exudes class, from bedroom to table’.