Havens and Hideaways

19/11/2022

The anniversary of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth I

30/07/2022

Is this a film set or a real place? What do you think?

04/04/2022

💥💥Job Opportunity 💥💥
(Still available)

Ever fancied moving to Applecross? We have a double en suite room in our staff house now available so are looking a for a couple / 2 friends to join our team (this is the view from the staff garden - just saying 😉).

This can be a chef & front of house couple or 2 front of house but may be flexible.

Good rates of pay, fantastic benefits and excellent tips, free gym membership at Applecross Gym, meals provided on duty, and accommodation available with views like this where you can chill out on your days off (we also do our utmost to give you the best work / life balance we can).

Not many people get the opportunity to move somewhere like Applecross so we know chances like this don’t come up too often, but we are looking for an immediate start and want to get the positions filled ASAP.

Send your CV to Mark / Judith at [email protected] or send us a message if interested.

17/03/2022

11/03/2022

Adare Manor has even less space!

11/03/2022

Ashford Castle is amazingly busy for June already. Book early for you Irish holidays!

12/01/2022

An account of yet another lost Laois house, never sketched by an artist or turned into a Kodak moment.

https://laoishouses.wordpress.com/2022/01/12/bleakfield-borris-in-ossory/

Bleakfield, an unknown house that stood on the edge of Borris in Ossory

10/01/2022

Travel & Leisure’s January 2022 Edition gives its suggestions for The Best Places in Dublin to Eat, Drink, and Shop in Dublin.
They suggest staying at The Shelbourne. Much as I love the grand dame, especially now that her nubile Nubians are back in position, I think that the Merrion has far better rooms, and is not part of a chain.
It then suggests breakfast at Brother Hubbard as a decadent treat. Not sure about that either. My experience of Brother Hubbard (which I do like) has been more Heytsbury Street Hipster than Decadent. In the absence of The Country Shop, where would I bring a visitor to Dublin for breakfast? Maybe Bewleys for the atmosphere. Or Alma, on the South Circular, though that’s still a bit too Heytsbury Street Hipster. My favourite greasy spoon by the Fruit and Veg market is now a building site, but on that side of town is Wuff in Smithfield which is pretty good. But for real Dublin character it has to be Deke’s Diner in a container on the Ringsend roundabout.
It then suggests a 1916 walking tour. Nah. There’s more to Dublin than the Easter Rising. Our own walking tours do the full 4,000 years, from the slight stone age settlement to some slightly good modern buildings!
Snag lunch at Fish Shop. Hmmm. Fine if you like fish and are not gluten free. I think that I would have chosen The Fumbally or the café at The Hugh Lane Gallery or The Silk Road Café at the Chester Beatty. But for Dublin style and originality maybe it should be Assassination Custard on Kevin Street.
Make your way to Brown Thomas for a personal shopping experience. I can’t argue with that, though my bank manager might. We offer a great at, antiques and craft shops tour. And I love the Joycean literary tours. And wealthy fashionistas should not miss Louise Kennedy’s atelier on Merrion Square.
Visit the stunning Trinity College Library. I find myself in 100% agreement, though be quick before it closes for refurbishment.
Dine on the Early Bird Special at Richmond. Yes, the Richmond is definitely one of a cornucopia of great dining places that have appeared around Dublin over the last few years – Bastible, Forest and Marcy, Variety Jones, -- I don’t think that I could have picked just one.
And finally for the pub experience it suggests that you order a pint or a dram at The Palace Bar on Fleet Street. A perfectly respectable bar, but there are so many others – The Stag’s Head, upstairs at The Bruxelles, The Cobblestone for music, The Gravediggers. Famously, Toners on Baggot Street was the only pub that W.B. Yeats ever had a drink in. He was brought into the snug by Oliver St John Gogarty and not enjoying the experience, never set foot in a pub again. Perhaps the best bar to visit would be Sam Stephenson's 1957 Horseshoe Bar in The Shelbourne described with forensic accuracy by a previous GM, paraphrasing Dorian Gray, as being full of “ladies with a past and men with no future”.

05/01/2022

Grenville, a modest house of pleasing proportions that may be about to become a development )-:...

https://laoishouses.wordpress.com/2022/01/05/greenville-portlaoise/

Grenville, a modest house of pleasing proportions that may be about to become a development )-:

26/12/2021

Stephen’s day walk :-)

04/12/2021

A crumbled Colclough castle and a crumbling Cassan chateau!...

https://laoishouses.wordpress.com/2021/12/04/ballyknockan-or-castleview/

A crumbled Colclough castle and a crumbling Cassan chateau!

26/11/2021

A very deeply researched article on the history of Ballyadams Castle by Daniel Byrne Rothwell...

https://laoishouses.wordpress.com/2021/11/26/ballyadams-castle/

A very deeply researched article on the history of Ballyadams Castle by Daniel Byrne Rothwell

20/11/2021

A lost villa by Richard Morrison...

https://laoishouses.wordpress.com/2021/11/20/knockfin/

A lost villa by Richard Morrison

13/11/2021

Coolfin, the home of the Ossory Show...

https://laoishouses.wordpress.com/2021/11/13/coolfin-rathdowney/

Coolfin, the home of the Ossory Show

06/11/2021

St. Carthage's Cathedral, Lismore, is holding an online sale of donated artworks today with all funds helping to conserve this nationally important building that has been a place of worship and learning since 635AD. Find your work of art on https://versoart.ie/

06/11/2021

Pair of gateways, c. 1820. Section of rubble stone walled garden, c. 1820, to site. Remainder of estate (including house) now demolished and site cleared. It is hard to guess the date that Thornberry was built. The central half octagon bay is reminiscent of Mount Brown in County Limerick and Wilton that once stood outside Urlingford, both from the middle of the 18th century. ...

https://laoishouses.wordpress.com/2021/11/06/thornberry-house-abbeyleix/

Pair of gateways, c. 1820. Section of rubble stone walled garden, c. 1820, to site. Remainder of estate (including house) now demolished and site cleared. It is hard to guess the date that Thornb…

30/10/2021

Knockatrina - ruin to rebirth...

https://laoishouses.wordpress.com/2021/10/30/knochatrina/

Knockatrina – ruin to rebirth