Mornington House

‘Gracious and enjoyable’ hosts Anne and Warwick O’Hara have long welcomed guests to their 18th-century country house with tea and home-baked cakes or biscuits. (The host’s home-made blueberry pancakes at breakfast are a great draw, too.) The house has remained in the family for more than 150 years; it retains a gently old-fashioned charm, with its open fires, antique furnishings, oriental rugs, paintings and family photographs. Ask to play the grand piano in the drawing room wallpapered in gold. At night, candles are lit in the atmospheric dining room, where Anne O’Hara’s home-cooked meals are communally served around the large oak table. The hostess, a keen gardener, liberally uses produce from the large walled garden and greenhouse in her Irish dishes, perhaps carrot and orange soup; herbed chicken, broccoli, mashed potatoes. Spend the night in one of the ‘comfortable’, traditionally styled bedrooms – most are ‘spacious’, with views over the gardens and grounds. In the morning, enjoy a hearty breakfast before striking out to explore. There are resident donkeys and chickens to visit; a path through the meadow leads to Lough Derravaragh.