OUR CASTLE, OUR KEEP
The old joke that you don’t travel to Ireland for the weather is entirely true. Ireland is not the kind of place that a ‘sun-worshipping, cocktails-by-the-pool-from-11am-till-late’ wife like mine would naturally seek out. So to convince her to spend a valuable week of her European travel time on the Atlantic Ocean’s eastern break wall required a compelling itinerary.
Hence my ‘Great Castle and Manor Hotel Stays of Ireland’ itinerary, featuring a series of properties that stretch from the approachable and affordable to those of the more wallet-busting once-in-a-lifetime variety. But no matter how stately or opulent, they all reveal the heart and history of Ireland and its people.
BALLYFIN, COUNTY LAOIS
105 kilometres; a 90-minute drive south-west of Dublin
Talk about a sense of arrival: two butlers wait on the steps of this magnificent Georgian manor house as we edge the car gently over the driveway that divides it from the lawn, the helipad and the man-made lake. After soaking in the vista, we enter the foyer. Underfoot is an ancient Roman mosaic, purchased in 1822 by the
