Lismore Castle by Anthony Healy

The Duke of Devonshire’s Irish home in County Waterford is built on the Blackwater River. It seems to rise out of the river itself, a fairytale castle, built for an Errol Flynn sword fight. You’d need a heart of stone to miss the romance and faded elegance of the place. And you can rent it out.

It’s the kind of place you use for parties, weddings, family reunions, or corporate junkets, if your corporation has that much style. At a few thousand per night for up to twelve guests, it’s not cheap. But it’s not expensive either when you consider that the price includes dinner, breakfast and afternoon tea served by the butler. There’s also a cook, two maids and staff to wait on table.

Basically, you get to live like a Duke for a night with a couple of meals thrown in. If you consider the current exchange rate of the Irish punt to the dollar or sterling, Lismore Castle starts to look like an interesting bargain.

It’s a mixture of incongruities. The main door looks ancient but it’s electronically operated. The entrance hall has a full sized billiard table in front of a large fireplace. The bedrooms have large plush beds in them but some of the wallpaper you wouldn’t want to live with on a permanent basis. Some of the bathrooms need upgrading but Michael Penruddock, the man who runs the place, tells me they are in the process of putting in a few power showers which will improve things.

The best room in the castle is the banqueting hall. It’s two stories high with ornate wood paneling on the walls and a large stained glass window at one end. Dinner can be provided in the banqueting hall if you can round up enough guests.

“It’s not everyone’s cup of tea,” says Michael Penruddock, “but children love it. They can run about the place, and nobody minds about shoes on chairs. We’re not prissy like that.”

Staff make sure everything is taken care of. They can arrange for you to be met at the airport (Shannon for the US, Cork for Europe). Clothes get laundered, shoes get polished, lunch isn’t normally provided but they will put one on if you ask. You get a lot of flexibility for your money.

Lismore Castle isn’t a modern hotel and shouldn’t be judged on that criterion. It doesn’t have a gym and a pool, but it does have buckets full of Old World charm. The main drawback? Well, the castle takes a maximum of 16 guests for a set fee; drinks, phones, lunches, cars, everything else are extras. They’ve kept it flexible, but I’m not crazy about the pricing structure. You need a pen and a piece of paper to work out the cost.