We had a terrific and successful Heritage Week, visiting every province in Ireland! We headed from home to County Limerick to stay in the lovely Ash Hill in Kilmallock, which is on the Section 482 list so I’ll be writing about it.

The next day (Saturday) we visited Beechwood in County Tipperary, which was built as a glebe house for the local Church of Ireland vicar, and then headed to The Turret in Ballingarry, County Limerick, an unusual building which may be built upon ancient Knights Templar or Knights Hospitaller foundations.

Donal, the owner, also brought us to see the nearby impressive ruin of a de Lacy castle. The next day we visited Glenville in County Limerick, an old Massey property which is being beautifully restored, and then headed to see Mount Trenchard outside Foynes.

On our way, we took a detour to a heritage site, the Desmond castle in Newcastle West.

On Monday we left our lovely Ash Hill, and headed to our airbnb in County Roscommon. We stopped in County Galway to visit two section 482 properties, Oranmore Castle and Claregalway Castle, both are restored tower houses.

We were very impressed by Claregalway Castle and its wonderful decor. We spent the next day at Strokestown, in the excellent famine museum.

We were disappointed to find that the repairs to the house are still in progress and that it is not yet safe for visitors. However, as we looked around the outside of the Palladian house, we ran into Aodain, one of the staff there, and he kindly invited us to the following day’s Heritage Week event, which I had not seen advertised when I was studying the Heritage Week events – a tour of the unique darkroom of Strokestown. So we returned the next day and were able to see a few rooms inside the house. It’s a section 482 property so I’ll be writing about it soon.

On Thursday we moved from our accommodation in Roscommon to stay with Nicola and Durcan at Annaghmore in County Sligo. On the way we stopped in Boyle in County Roscommon to visit King House, now an excellent museum with information about the King family, and also the Connaught Rangers who later occupied the building.

On Friday we visited Lissadell in County Sligo, and had a tour of the house, and visited the exhibitions about Constance Markievicz and WB Yeats, as well as the Alpine Garden.

On Saturday we drove to our last airbnb accommodation, in County Fermanagh, stopping at Manorhamilton Castle on the way which was meant to be open for Heritage Week and was scheduled to be open that day, but we were informed in the cafe on the site that it was not open that day. Grrr!

We relaxed in our gorgeous airbnb, a place that deserves to be on “home of the year,” and the next day went to our final Section 482 property for Heritage Week, Hilton Park in County Monaghan.

Fred gave us a great tour of the house and then we had a wander in the gardens, down to the lake. We arrived home yesterday, tired and happy to be home. I am delighted with all that we saw, and I have lots of properties now to write about!

Oh, we visited a couple of ancient sites too – we went to Rathcroghan when we were in County Roscommon, and to Carrowmore when in Sligo.

We only had one rude home owner, who was not open on Sunday 14th August despite being listed as open that day on the Section 482 list. The person who answered the house phone at Tarbert House, County Kerry, when I rang to ask if we could visit, said no, the house was not open that day. She said it would be open “of course” the following day, Monday, and that “you can do what you like” in terms of visiting! She hastily added, “It’s not large!” i.e. “don’t bother coming.” I don’t think a three storey over basement, seven bay building can be defined as “not large”!