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The hotel, just outside Kingscourt, dates to 1760 and has expansive gardens and parkland as well as panoramic views of Dún na Rí Forest Park nearby. No two rooms are the same but expect more than your fair share of canopy, four-poster and half-tester beds, not to mention bedrooms with fancy monikers.
It’s a hugely popular olde worlde wedding venue but don’t get carried away – sleeping in the Lord’s Bedchamber doesn’t give you leave to suggest droit du seigneur to the wedding party downstairs. Dinner and b&b from €105 pps. See cabracastle.com
The Corscadden family, owners of the aforementioned Cabra Castle – plus Ballyseede Castle in Kerry and Bellingham Castle in Louth – recently added Markree Castle, an imposing castle hotel in Sligo, to its collection. Indeed, it’s the only castle hotel in Sligo. For the previous 370 years Markree was home to the Cooper family and hopefully you’ll still see that lineage commemorated in the magnificent stained-glass window over the main staircase. With beautiful Italianate gardens and 500 acres of fields and parkland, it’s one to watch when it reopens after an extensive refurbishment in spring 2016. See markreecastle.ie Castle Durrow, Co Laois More chateau than castle – sans a turret or two – Castle Durrow in Co Laois is not the place to go for battlements or machicolations. But do you really need a murder hole to feel you’re on holiday?
In any case, who are we to argue the toss between castles and palaces when a hotel has just been voted one of the Top 10 Hotel Castles in the World by Trip Advisor, as this property has. It certainly has all necessary accoutrements including sweeping staircases, antique furniture and four-poster beds. But you don’t have to pay a king’s ransom to stay. Midweek overnights, including dinner, from €175 per couple. See castledurrow.com
It’s fair to assume Prince Charles knows a thing or two about castles. When he visited Ireland earlier this year it was to Lough Cutra Castle, in Gort, Co Galway, that he repaired.
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