Tour Recap: Great Houses of Ireland

Ireland does not have a National Trust-like organization that protects and maintains historic properties as they do in England. This means that many of Ireland’s great historic houses remain in private hands. Our June tour to Ireland focused on 300 years of Irish country houses with a few splendid gardens mixed in (it was June after all!).

This was a special trip: the majority of these houses are closed to the public. Through our connections we arranged private visits with the houses’ owners, lunches in their historic dining rooms, and even a whiskey tasting at the Jameson house.

We began at one of the oldest surviving country houses in Ireland where the 11th generation owner showed us her family home.

We enjoyed a marvelous day with the owners of Ballywalter, an estate only accessible to interested groups. After a tour through their house, we joined Lord and Lady Dunleath for a glass of champagne followed by lunch in their dining room.

At Grey Abbey the Montgomerys told of fabulous tales of their family’s history. Home to the family since the early 1600s, this house is a classic example of Georgian architecture in Ireland.

Snippets from our visits! We saw so many inspiring interiors on this trip and it was a treat to visit homes that display hundreds of years of a family’s collection.

Ireland has magnificent gardens and we took our travelers to one of our favorites that is very off the beaten path. The gardens were designed by Edwin Lutyens and Gertrude Jekyll, while a large landscaped park includes romantic ruins of follies. We arranged a visit with the Head Gardener who knew all the ins and outs of this estate.

Nothing like a little whiskey at 10am when you visit the Jameson family home!

We ended our tour at one of Ireland’s largest estates and oldest houses. We walked through the gardens with the 7th Lady Rosse and her son, followed by a delicious lunch and stroll their home. Lady Rosse’s mother-in-law was Anne Messel. Anne was the mother of Antony Armstrong-Jones (husband of Princess Margaret) and the sister of designer Oliver Messel.

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