Sheep crop the grasses in the parkland around Roderick and Helena Perceval’s classical Georgian mansion overlooking a lake and a ruined 13th-century castle – a working private estate rather than romantic Grand Tour fantasy.

On the Wild Atlantic Way, with views across the ‘dramatic’ Burren Hills to Galway Bay, ‘delightful’ Gregans Castle is ‘the epitome of understated country-house hotel luxury,’ writes a Guide regular this year.

Infused with warmth, Paddy and Hannah Flynn’s Georgian mansion beneath the Slieve Bloom mountains may be a little lived in, but few hotels can touch it for character.

Reputedly Ireland’s longest running hotel under one family’s ownership: its ‘true country house’ atmosphere and easy access to rural pursuits draw back guests year after year.

A beautiful formal garden greets visitors to the O’Haras’ otherwise laid-back and informal Georgian mansion.

‘Remains a flagship in its idiom,’ writes a trusted reader, of this legendary enterprise, centred on a wisteria-draped Georgian house grafted on to the remains of a Norman castle.

A mildly bohemian air filters through the Green family’s wisteria-hung Georgian country house hotel, bordered by bluebell woods.

‘Tranquil air of relaxed calm’, ‘Good for the soul’, ‘An oasis of peace’. We hear perennial praise for John Edward Joyce’s country house hotel.

Scottish Baronial meets Italian Renaissance in Samantha Leslie’s Victorian pile on one of the last great Irish castle estates still owned by the founding family.

A Georgian house in extensive grounds near the Lagan river, John and Louise Mathers’s ‘first-rate’ guest house is an ‘outstanding’ place to stay.

‘A beautiful place with great hosts.’ Guide readers ‘highly recommend’ this well-located former Norman castle-turned-farmhouse-turned-country guest house in Ireland’s Ancient East.

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

There are diversions aplenty at this much-refurbished 17th-century former fishing lodge on a tranquil estate overlooking Kenmare bay and the Sheen waterfalls.

‘Great Atlantic views’ and beach walks await at Antoin O’Looney’s ‘wonderfully hospitable’ small hotel.

A home-from-home in the Blackwater valley.

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

It is easy to see why this 18th-century Italianate country house is known locally as The Castle.

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

Painstakingly restored and maintained, Michael McMahon and John Bentley-Dunn’s house in the Boyne valley ‘exudes class, from bedroom to table’.

High praise from regular readers this year after returning to Brede Thomas’s ‘wonderful’ B&B.