Best family friendly hotels in Ireland

Liza Minnelli, Peter Ustinov, Daniel Day-Lewis and Karl Gustav 16th of Sweden are among past guests who have fallen for the time-warp charms of Ireland’s oldest coaching inn.

More Hogwarts than Dotheboys Hall, this turreted Victorian schoolhouse is now a quirky hotel with classic and contemporary bedroom styling, a garden for playtime, an appealing blackboard menu of gastropub dishes, and willing, smiling staff.

In 32 wooded, landscaped acres on the shores of Lough Caragh, this gabled Edwardian manor house combines comfort and elegance, with an antique-filled lounge and candlelit restaurant.

Verity Butterfield clearly loves to welcome guests to her loch-side Georgian house, with blazing fires, comfy sofas, good artworks, home-baked biscuits, excellent breakfasts, and dinner by arrangement.

Guests are welcomed with tea or coffee and home-baked biscuits at the Mernagh family’s farmhouse B&B beside a 15th-century fortified tower house.

Set on a 300-acre working farm, this legendary Irish country-house hotel has grown from being a restaurant with rooms that is passionate about locally sourced food into a thriving business, with cookery school, café and arts venue.

Gorgeous interiors and a friendly, informal ambience are a winning combination at Susan Stuart’s beautiful B&B, where every bedroom has a sea view, and breakfast is quite special.

A private drive loops through native woodland and pastures to this classical mansion overlooking a ruined Knights Templar castle and teeming fishing lake in W B Yeats country.

Beneath Slieve Foy Mountain, stepping distance from the sea and within walled gardens, the Carroll family’s Georgian house affords views at every turn.

Pass the little gate lodge to drive up to this bay-fronted country house in wooded grounds edged by a beach on Lough Swilly.

Every painting, sculpture and piece of furniture feels cherished and chosen at John Edward Joyce’s Victorian country mansion in landscaped gardens.

You feel more like a valued guest than a customer at this Georgian country house hotel and fishing destination with antique-filled interiors, where the locally sourced cooking is a big attraction.

Hannah and Paddy Flynn are warm hosts at their Palladian villa in native woodland, filled with heirloom antiques and auction finds, where singing chef Paddy cooks with brio, breakfast brings eggs from the ducks and hens, and a good time is had by all.

With breakfast served until noon, afternoon tea by the drawing room fire, shooting, fishing and communal dining, a house-party atmosphere prevails at this Georgian country house.

Solitary Nephin, Ireland’s highest stand-alone mountain, provides a dramatic backdrop to this classic, pink-washed Georgian country house in wooded grounds on Lough Conn.

It may not be a castle but this rambling 18th-century manor house, wrapped in gardens and with views over the otherworldly karst landscape of the Burren, has its own romantic charm.

There are wonderful views from this pink-washed manor house in gardens edged by Ballinakill Bay, with interiors full of antiques and curios, imaginative menus and personable third-generation owners.