GO IRELAND: EMMA CULLINANenjoys a stay at Sandbrook House in Carlow – a place which combines grandeur with a warm, homely welcome – and, along with SHEILA RYANsuggests other notable country houses to visit or hire
‘YOU SHOULD have come in the front door,” exclaimed house manager Vera Brennan as we arrived in her kitchen where chef Gerald Esposito was arm wrestling with a great hunk of pasta dough on the island unit. An Aga added to the warmth provided by the wooden floor, tongue-and-groove timber units and smiling people.
It’s not that we had been daunted by the front door – grand though it was, standing as a glossy vanishing point at the end of a long drive graced by mature deciduous trees and lined with pastures on which horses grazed happily – but from the car park to the side of the house a rose-rich garden beckons you through it down a plant-puffed path to the kitchen. The staff and family entrance.
Brennan immediately offered us drinks and took us into the drawing room where we settled into country manor life alongside two guests already relaxing beside the fire reading newspapers. A wall of books offered us a lifestyle of reading by the fire while settled in soft sofas.
This 19th century Georgian-style pile has been decorated in deference to the original architecture resulting in a country house that offers its guests the sense of grandeur inherent in large, doubled-front country houses in a parkland setting.
But Sandbrook House in Ballon, Co Carlow, also feels homely, partly because its owner has left his mark on the place with those books and family mementoes dotted amid a mix of antique and contemporary furniture.
It’s like walking into a friend’s country home although, unlike with the worn interiors moulded by centuries of family life that are the reality for much of the rural gentry, this house is beautifully decorated and everything works (bedrooms come with en suites) because it is for rent.
Its owner Christopher Bielenberg moved to the area as a boy after his German father Peter and English/Irish mother Christabel left Germany after the second World War during which Peter was implicated in a plot to kill Hitler. Christabel, who comes from the Northcliffe and Rothermere newspaper family, managed to convince the authorities to release Peter from prison (some of his friends were executed) and it is all documented in her book The Past is Myself.In 1943 the pair moved to a new home at Munny in Co Carlow with their three sons – Nicholas, John and Christopher.
Christopher Bielenberg later bought Sandbrook House and now spends his time between Ireland, Tuscany and London. He was in residence the weekend we visited, and explained to us how groups who wish to rent the house can either take it all on and do their own cooking or they could have it catered by Brennan and other talented women in her family.
We sampled the Brennans’ gorgeous traditional food one evening – laced with olive oil from Bielenberg’s Tuscan home – a group of us sitting around the long wooden table in the dining room across a corridor from the kitchen.
But it wasn’t just Vera Brennan’s (home-grown, local and seasonal) food we tried. We had spent the afternoon learning to pound pasta dough under the guidance of French/Italian chef Esposito of The Capri Bay restaurant in Youghal. I’m no foodie and rarely expound on meals eaten. Yet Esposito’s fresh lobster ravioli made me want to weep.
Christopher Bielenberg is a gentleman host of the old school who tells expanding stories about historic people, laced with personal observations (in the usual Irish way we discovered mutual friends, in this case spreading across the Irish Sea).
He gallantly stayed up with the last guest and got up for breakfast with the first waker, while the majority of us spent a shocking amount of time in the high, comfortable beds, savouring views of the countryside through sash windows.
Bielenberg gave us a tour of his upstairs theatre in a barn, whose seats were a cheap, job lot he got from someone who was throwing them out. The “theatre’ was an upstairs back room and beside it is an ante-room for theatregoers to hang about in. “There was really bad behaviour in here,” he says gleefully passing his hand across a space in which chairs were grouped or in pairs, or fallen, referring to his last event. It’s that sense of revelling in off-beat behaviour, history, friendly professional service, cosiness and grandeur that makes Sandbrook House an exquisite place.
Emma Cullinan was a guest of Sandbrook House, Ballon, Co Carlow. The house is available to rent at weekends for €2,400 for up to 18 people and €4,500 for a week for up to 10 people. Vera Brennan and her team can provide breakfast and dinner at an extra cost. One-off cultural events cost €75pps on a BB basis. 059-9159247, sandbrookhouse.com.
Country houses from Cork to Down
Sligo
Coopershill House, Riverstown, Co Sligo. 071-9165108, coopershill.com.This grand eight-bedroom mansion, which sleeps 16, is approached by a long drive. It is the family home of eight generations of the O'Haras and was built in 1774. As well as the 500-acre estate at Coopershill, it has paths through woods and deer pastures. This is a country hotel but can be hired on a catered basis with candle-lit dinners and log fires.
Cost: two nights accommodation, breakfasts, dinners and teas cost €245 each for 12-16 people. Longer exclusive hire ranges from €4,800 to €9,500 for five days.
Limerick
Springfield Castle, Drumcollogher, Co Limerick. springfieldcastle.com,063-83162. This castle, which sleeps 24, is the ancestral home of Lord and Lady Muskerry. It sits on a 200-acre estate and is approached along a long avenue, lined with lime trees.
There are two buildings that can be rented separately or together: the castle, and the East Tower wing. The castle sleeps 14 in eight bedrooms and has six bathrooms. The East Tower sleeps 10.
Cost:from €1,900 for a week in the tower in low season to €7,500 for a week in the castle and tower in high summer.
Ballyteigue House, Bruree, Co Limerick. 063-90575, ballyteigue.com.This Georgian country house sleeps nine (plus six in a courtyard cottage). The house has antique furniture, spacious rooms, a large garden and views of the Golden Vale. Cork city and Co Kerry are near enough for day trips.
Cost:from €600 a week (oil and electricity extra).
Kilkenny
Clomantagh Castle, Freshford, Co Kilkenny. 01-6704733 , irishlandmark.com.This is a medieval towerhouse which sleeps 10 and is surrounded by a working farm. The 1430s tower and the early 1800s farmhouse are linked. Clomantagh originally belonged to the Earl of Ormond.
Cost: a two-night weekend in low season is from €650 plus €20 light and heat. One week in high season is from €1,750 plus €49 light and heat.
Meath
Tankardstown House, Slane, Co Meath. tankardstown.ie, 041-9824621. This Georgian house and courtyard sleeps up to 36 and is set in 80 acres of parkland (which includes an outdoor hot tub tucked into the walled garden). There are courtyard cottages surrounding a fountain in the old stables. It is fully staffed and catered.
Cost:the main house is available for hire from €2,000 a night. The entire estate is from €6,000 a night (excluding the restaurant which has separate car-parking and entrance).
Cork
Ballyvolane House, Fermoy, Co Cork. ballyvolanehouse.ie, 025-36349. This is a classical Georgian house built in 1728 and modified 120 years later in Italianate style. The grounds include formal gardens, a walled garden, trout lakes and a working farm. The house has six bedrooms.
Cost:three nights B&B midweek plus two four-course dinners from €355 per person.
Down
Montalto Estate, Ballynahinch. 028-97566100, Montaltoestate.com.Montalto offers the exclusive use of a 400-acre estate and a restored Georgian house furnished with a fine collection of Irish and European art.
Cost:from £3,500 (€4,000) per night for up to 18 people.
Fermanagh
Belle Isle Castle, Lisbellaw, Enniskillen. 028-66387231, belle-isle.com. Travel back in time to the 17th century castle of Belle Isle. Groups of up to 16 can self-cater or hire a chef.
Cost: the castle is from £563 (€655) a night for accommodation for up to 16 guests.
Country house groups
To live out the fantasy of being lord or lady of the manor, you can reserve exclusive use of a historic country house for a private weekend away.
“Dinner is always taken around a big polished dining room table beside the fire,” says Justin Green of Ballyvolane House, one of Hidden Ireland’s properties (hiddenireland.com). “The owners behave like Jeeves. We’re going around serving the wine, carrying up luggage and answering the door.”
Guests need not expect spas and treatment rooms, but relaxing strolls in the grounds with perhaps a game of croquet or some fishing. In winter, Green serves up “hedgerow martinis” made with his own sloe gin and at Christmas he arranges carols around the piano. The private party option is popular with friends and families gathering for a special occasion.
Private parties in historic homes and castles are also offered by Ireland’s Blue Book (irelands-blue-book.ie) and Elegant Ireland (elegant.ie).
“The Hidden Ireland houses are the real deal; there’s a sense of comfort in going back to the past,” says Green.