‘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.

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.

In a small town well placed for tours of the Ring of Kerry, and the Wild Atlantic Way, Una and Dermot Brennan’s hotel is family-run, with a lot of heart and luxury boutique aspirations.

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