historic hotels ireland

Conor O'Brien, 18th Baron Inchiquin, is the O'Brien of Thomond, direct descendant of Brian Boru, High King of Ireland, who defeated the Vikings at the battle of Clontarf in 1014. He still lives amid the 1000-acre estate through which the river Rine meanders, and is the former owner of Dromoland Castle, though he has built himself a new, more modest mansion, and his erstwhile ancestral home is now a luxury hotel.
The original entrance leads up into a small hall, furnished with a spreadi...

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...

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...

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...

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...

Beside the now little-travelled old coaching road from Dublin to Wicklow, which still winds and twists through wooded countryside, stands Hunter's Hotel. It has always been an inn. A cobbled entrance leads to a graceful Georgian doorway, and into a red-and-black tiled hall, worn by the feet of travellers, and polished to a high gloss. A creaking staircase leads up to a wide landing, decorated with painted china basins and ewers, once in daily use. In the hall hangs a pair of enormous ox horn...

Sheltered by huge trees in 180 acres, it is edged with a neat garden which is the pride of Lady Levinge, since she has won much of it back from a wilderness, while her husband has been improving the home farm. She runs her won Connemara pony stud farm on the premises, and travels widely to international horse shows, both to act as a judge and to show her won ponies. There are herons and wild duck on the flight pond below the house, badgers in the woods nearby, and a glorious panoramic view of...

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...

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,...

An elaborate glass entrance porch housing an antique reception desk has been added to the formerly rather plain Regency stone facade, and this leads through to an inner hall, bright with fresh flowers. From here a graceful staircase curls steeply upwards, hung with portraits , and lit at each level by progressively larger glittering Waterford crystal chandeliers, all linked to one central chain . On the right is a huge and gracious drawing room, with a well-stocked mahogany bar in one cor...