historic hotels ireland

Only fourteen miles from Dublin, standing amid fields decoratively dotted with cows and sheep, this elegant Georgian manor suggests the richness of its interiors by the extravagant number of flower-filled hanging baskets, window-boxes, and urns which adorn its facade. The beautifully porportioned hall is filled with furniture. There are two conservatories and a vast and elegant dining room where a huge mahogany sideboard groans under massive silver dishes and cut-glass decanters.

The...

This 1720’s building was the seat of the Earls of Dunraven. The second and third Earls rebuilt the house between 1832 and 1860, enlarging it to create a Victorian mansion in a Gothic-revival style. The grandeur of the gilded Spanish leather doors and the stone Gothic arches of the high-ceilinged inner hall strikes the visitor immediately. But the fresh-flowers inside, the welcoming fireplace by reception and the pleasant 840-acre garden outside help make it feel human rather than intimidating....

The comfortable, 19th-century house has log and peat fires burning in every hearth, plump inviting armchairs and plenty of magazines and books. To the large drawing room, hall-sitting room, den, and library, Dermot and Kay have added a large bar with a glass porch, where guests assemble before dinner to chat and study the promising menu, and a restaurant, also with big glass windows looking out into a small woodland glade.

The bedrooms in the original house are all of different siz...

A castle stood on this land in the 1400s, and beyond a high wall in the garden is an ancient stableyard with Elizabethan buildings, said to be haunted by the ghost of a former owner, who was piked to death by insurrectionists in 1798. The French family, previous owners of Newbay House, founded the Canadian Mounties. The last heir married a canadian girl, and setttled in Canada, selling Newbay House to Paul and Min Drum. Open peat and log fires welcome arriving guests, and the house is decor...

Ashford Castle stands a the head of Lough Corrib. You drive in under an impressive gateway, through a manicured nine-hole golf-course, and across an arched bridge over a wide river, into a broad forecourt, where the massive partly 13th-century crenelated castle stretches before you. In the 1800s the castle was rebuilt as a hunting lodge, and it was further extended while in the ownership of the Guinness family. In 1971 it became a hotel mainly for fishermen, but has since been totally refurbi...

Lady Levinge of Clohamon was born in this castle, which stands on its own 310-acre island in the middle of the river Suir. Her grandfather, much married, was a noted local personality, her mother, who later became Princess d'Ardia Caracciolo, was a famous thirties beauty, who, it is said, had been known to swim the river when returning home from a hunt ball. The castle was built in the 1160s and had wings added in the 19th century. Now it has been bought by a wealthy local farmer and transf...

The house, with private fisheries on the tidal Newport river, was established by the Mumford-Smiths as a fishing hotel and the Thompsons have continued this tradition, retaining many of the long serving staff. Newport House is now a member of the Relais et Chateaux Association. The house itself is very interesting. Built on a far older site, up on the river bank, a pretty 1720s bow-fronted mansion has been encased in a later extremely grand edifice. The sitting room, with chandelier and fin...

In the middle of the small town, impressive gates open into a long forecourt, at the end of which is the splendid red-brick facade of this former Archbishop's Palace, built c. 1731 and designed by Sir Edward Lovett Pearce, architect of the old Parliament House in Dublin. I had wondered whether a town setting would prove noisy, but the hotel is set well back from the traffic in a peaceful, sheltering garden. The pillared entrance hall is imposing. Panelled in pine, painted a delicate apricot,...

The grandfather of poet Robert Graves rented the original house at Parknasilla as a summer residence. It was bought by Southern Hotels, who in 1890 erected a new hotel nearby, designed by the architect of the Park Hotel and Ashford Castle. Southern Railways, who found themselves in the curious position of owning a winter resort hotel nowhere near a rail station. Their passengers had to be conveyed by horse and carriage the not inconsiderable fifteen miles from Kenmare.

The view is...

The lake district of Killarney is a famous beauty spot, and you can choose to come to Kenmare by the road from Killarney that passes through the pretty woodlands beside the lakes, then climbs steeply up, narrow and winding, to spectacular mountain views, and down to the seashore at Kenmare.

The Park Hotel was built originally as a railway hotel in 1897 and has the sturdy gray-stone dignity of the period. It is high on a hillside, with immaculate terraced gardens and walkways leading...