Currarevagh House

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. Interiors tell a tale of 180 years of family ownership, with clocks, books and bibelots, a tiger skin (sorry, tiger!), fish in glass cases, framed maps and paintings, a vintage bagatelle machine. Spacious, refurbished bedrooms have vintage furniture, cut flowers, Irish toiletries, hand-woven rugs, water from the spring, views of the lough or the Maam mountains, no door key (you’re among friends). At night Lucy, who was trained by Prue Leith, cooks a no-choice, locally sourced, four-course dinner of such dishes as spring lamb with wild garlic gremolata and redcurrant jus. At breakfast there is granola, kombucha, local cheeses, home-baked ham, the full Irish, while picnics come packed in a colourful 1940s tin. The wooded grounds are a wildlife reserve: keep your eyes trained for otters, hen harriers, tufted ducks and pochards – not to mention brook lampreys, freshwater pearl mussels and sickle moss.