Best country house hotels in Ireland

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).

You don’t have to be a fly-fisher to check in at Kieran Thompson’s creeper-swathed, late Georgian mansion with views over the Newport River estuary and Clew Bay, but if you are into the sport, this is indeed the place to stay.

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.

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 15th-century fortified tower complete with massive walls and murder holes abuts this handsome B&B in the heart of a working farm.

Creeper-covered on the outside, and filled with quiet, old-world charm on the inside, this B&B is owned and run by Regina Gibson and Thomas Coyle, who have restored the former rectory with period flair.

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

In a spa town on the edge of the Burren, a landscape of ash and hazel woodland, of grassland, cliffs and fen, this Michelin-starred pub-with-rooms attracts discerning diners with its refined bistro cooking and country-cosy accommodation.

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.

With cakes on the sideboard, drinks by the fire, and a gong to summon guests to dinner, Henry and Lucy Hodgson’s Victorian mansion in parkland on Lough Corrib has the atmosphere of a much-loved home.

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.

‘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.’

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

You can drift off to sleep to the sound of the waves and wake to the view over Bunatrahir Bay at this Victorian coastguard's fortress turned one-of-a-kind hotel.

‘A special place.’ Said to be Ireland’s oldest coaching inn, this rambling, ‘extremely comfy’ hotel stands in ‘lovely’ grounds by the River Vartry.

The extensive gardens of this Irish sandstone-built manor house on the wooded shores of Lough Caragh are ripe for discovery: hidden pathways open on to the water, and the mountains beyond.