Ireland has a remarkable number of historic houses for a country its size. Some are open to the public as museums or managed heritage sites. Others are still family homes, passed down through generations or bought and restored by people who wanted to keep them going. A few, like Roundwood House, take in guests. Each of them carries a different story, and that variety is part of what makes them worth seeking out.
This is not an exhaustive list. It’s a selection of houses that are interesting for different reasons, spread across the country, with a few words on what makes each one worth a visit. If you’re planning a trip to Ireland with historic architecture in mind, or if you’d simply like to understand a bit more about what you’re looking at when you pass one of these places on a country road, this should give you a reasonable starting point.
Why So Many Historic Houses?
The number of grand houses in Ireland is partly explained by history that is also difficult. From the 17th century onwards, large landholdings were granted to English and Anglo Irish settlers, and many of them built substantial houses on those estates. By the 18th century, the Palladian style in particular had taken hold among the landowning class, and the Irish countryside filled up with houses that drew heavily on classical architecture. Some were grand statements of wealth and power. Others were more modest, built to a pattern that felt appropriate for a gentleman farmer or minor landowner rather than an aristocrat.
After Irish independence in the early 20th century, many of these houses fell into difficulty. Some were burned, others abandoned, many sold off and subdivided. A significant number were demolished. The ones that survive today have done so for all sorts of reasons: some were taken into state care, some kept going by families who never left, and some rescued by people who saw what they were before it was too late.
The result is a complicated landscape. These houses are beautiful and often architecturally extraordinary, and they also sit within a history that not everyone finds straightforward to celebrate. That tension is part of what makes them interesting to visit and think about.
Castletown House, Co. Kildare
Castletown is the largest Palladian country house in Ireland and one of the most important 18th century buildings on the island. It was built in the 1720s for William Conolly, who was at the time the wealthiest man in Ireland and Speaker of the Irish House of Commons. The house is now in the care of the Office of Public Works and is open to the public.
What makes Castletown particularly worth visiting is the interior. The Long Gallery on the upper floor, decorated in a Pompeian style in the 1770s, is one of the finest rooms in the country. The house also connects to the remarkable Wonderful Barn nearby, a corkscrew shaped structure built in 1743 as a famine relief project. It’s visible from the road and easy to include on the same visit.
Castletown is about an hour from Roundwood House if you’re planning a day trip north from Laois.
Birr Castle, Co. Offaly
Birr Castle has been the home of the Parsons family, the Earls of Rosse, since the early 17th century. The castle itself is not open for tours, but the gardens and demesne are, and they are worth the visit on their own. The grounds contain the tallest box hedges in the world at 10 metres, and a remarkable collection of trees including many rare and historic specimens.
What sets Birr apart from many other estate visits is the science centre built around the Great Telescope, which was constructed here in the 1840s by the third Earl of Rosse. For 72 years it was the largest telescope in the world, and the engineering behind it is genuinely impressive. Birr is about 30 minutes from Roundwood House and makes for an easy half day out.
Emo Court, Co. Laois
Emo Court is a Neo Classical mansion designed by James Gandon in the 1790s, better known for the Custom House and the Four Courts in Dublin. It was built for the first Earl of Portarlington and passed through several hands before coming into state ownership. The house is open for guided tours in season, and the gardens and parklands are open year round.
The interior is worth seeing, particularly the rotunda, which Gandon designed as the centrepiece of the house. The yew walk in the grounds is one of the best in Ireland, and the overall scale of the place gives you a good sense of the ambitions of the landowning class in that period. Emo is about 25 minutes from Roundwood House.
Strokestown Park, Co. Roscommon
Strokestown Park is significant for a number of reasons. The house itself is a fine Palladian mansion completed in the 1730s. But the reason most people make the journey to Roscommon is the Irish National Famine Museum, which is housed in the stable yards of the estate and is one of the best and most sobering museums in the country.
The Mahon family, who owned Strokestown during the Famine, were responsible for the mass eviction and assisted emigration of thousands of their tenants. The landlord, Major Denis Mahon, was assassinated in 1847. The archive of estate papers survived intact and forms the backbone of the museum’s collection. It’s a place that stays with you.
The house tours give a clear picture of the life lived above stairs while all of this was happening, which makes the combination of house and museum particularly powerful. Strokestown is about two hours from Roundwood House but well worth the drive if you have time.
Damer House, Co. Tipperary
Damer House in Roscrea is a fine early 18th century town house that shares its grounds with a medieval castle dating from the 1280s. The combination of periods in a single site makes it a bit unusual and very interesting. It’s in the care of Heritage Ireland and is open to visitors. The house has been carefully restored and the medieval remains are substantial enough to be genuinely impressive rather than just suggestive.
Roscrea itself is a good stopping point on the road between Dublin and the south west, and Damer House is easy to include if you’re passing through.
Florence Court, Co. Fermanagh
Florence Court in County Fermanagh is an 18th century house in the care of the National Trust, set in fine grounds at the foot of Cuilcagh Mountain. The house was badly damaged by fire in 1955 and subsequently restored, and it’s now one of the best examples of Irish Rococo plasterwork anywhere in the country. The original Florence Court yew, parent tree of all Irish yew trees, grows in the grounds.
It’s a long drive from Laois but an outstanding house if you’re travelling in the north west of the country.
Charleville Castle, Co. Offaly
Charleville Castle near Tullamore is a Gothic Revival castle completed in the early 19th century and considered one of the finest examples of that style in Ireland. It’s a striking building, with towers and battlements and elaborate interior detailing. The castle has had a complicated recent history, going through periods of neglect and partial restoration, and visiting it feels quite different from a polished heritage site visit. It’s a bit rough around the edges, which is part of the appeal.
Guided tours run regularly and the guides tend to be genuinely enthusiastic about the place. Charleville is about 45 minutes from Roundwood House and worth an afternoon.
Roundwood House, Co. Laois
We’re biased, obviously, but Roundwood deserves its place on any list of historic Irish houses. It’s an 18th century Palladian villa, built around 1730 and described by architectural historian Maurice Craig as one of the finest mid size houses of the Georgian period in Ireland. The house was bought by Frank and Rosemarie Kennan in 1983, when it was in a poor state, and gradually brought back to life as a family home that also welcomed guests.
Hannah and Paddy Flynn, who run the house now, have continued that approach. It’s not a museum and it’s not a hotel. The rooms are furnished with period pieces and original paintings, the fire is lit in the drawing room when guests arrive, anddinner is cooked fresh each evening using ingredients from local producers and the kitchen garden.Frank’s Library, with over 2,000 books, is available to guests throughout their stay.
What makes Roundwood different from most of the houses on this list is that you can actually stay here. You sleep in the house, eat in the dining room, and use the gardens and grounds as you please. It’s a good way to understand what these places were actually built for.
If you’d like to stay at Roundwood House, you cancheck availability and book a room here. We also have twoself catering cottages in the grounds if you’d prefer more independence. Both the B&B and the cottages are available year round.
What to Look For When Visiting Historic Houses
If you’re new to visiting historic houses, a few things are worth paying attention to. The first is the plasterwork. Irish Georgian plasterwork is exceptionally fine, and the craftsmen who produced it, many of them working in the Rococo style in the mid 18th century, were among the best in Europe. Ceilings in particular are often extraordinary.
The second is the relationship between the house and its setting. These buildings were designed to be seen in landscape, and the placement of a house on a rise, or at the end of an avenue, or with a particular view framed from the principal rooms, was always deliberate. It’s worth stepping back outside after you’ve looked around inside to appreciate how the building sits in its surroundings.
The third is what isn’t there. Most of these houses have lost the full complement of furniture, paintings, and objects they once contained. Some of it was sold, some destroyed, some simply dispersed. When you walk through rooms that feel emptier than they should, that absence is itself part of the story.
Planning a Trip Around Historic Houses
The midlands of Ireland are often overlooked in favour of the coasts, but they contain a remarkable concentration of historic houses within a relatively small area. Laois, Offaly, Tipperary, and Kilkenny alone have enough to fill several days of visiting.
If you’re basing yourself in the region, Roundwood House in Mountrath is well placed for a number of the houses mentioned in this article. Emo Court and Birr Castle are both within 30 minutes. Charleville and Damer House are under an hour. Castletown is about an hour to the north.
We’ve put together suggested day trip itineraries from the house which you can ask us about when booking. Paddy and Hannah are happy to give more specific advice based on what you’re interested in, whether that’s architecture, gardens, history, or just getting out for a good drive through decent countryside.
Roundwood House is in Mountrath, Co. Laois, about an hour from Dublin. To book a stay or ask about the area,get in touch here or call +353 57 873 2120. You can alsobook directly online.
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