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...

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...

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...

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...

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,...

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 intimidat...

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 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...

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...

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 down to fields, woods and the tidal estuary of the Kenmare River. Its own 9-hole golf course is off to one side, bright hanging baskets of flowers are suspended from the delicate ironwork tracery of the verandah with groups of white chairs set out invitingly on the lawn.

The long drive cu...