Bantry House

Arriving at the waterfront in Bantry, you come to Bantry House. Like so many other Irish country houses, it has seen better days, but the present owner, Egerton Shelswell-White, makes visitors welcome and gives a typed information sheet—in the language of your choice—that guides you room-by-room through the house. The house has a wonderful collection of pictures, furniture, and works of art, brought together by the second Earl of Bantry during his European travels in the first half of the 19th century. In contrast to his ancestors’ staid portraits, Egerton is shown playing his trombone. (Open all year, tel: 027 50047.) Apart from furnishing the house, the second Earl, inspired by the gardens of Europe, laid out a formal Italian garden and a “staircase to the sky,” the steep terraces rising up to the crest of the hill behind the house. If you are not up to the climb, you can still enjoy a magnificent, though less lofty view across the boat-filled bay from the terrace in front of the house. A very pleasant tea and gift shop occupies the old kitchen. One wing of the house has been renovated and modernized to provide upmarket bed & breakfast accommodation.