Adare Manor was the former seat of the Earls of Dunraven. The house was built in the early 19th century and retained some of the walls of the 17th-century structure. It is now a luxury resort hotel. The original house was a “calendar house”, which means a house that architecturally contains quantities that represent the numbers of days in a year, weeks in a year, months in a year and days in a week. It had 365 stained-glass windows and 52 chimneys.

Begun in 1832, construction provided work for the people from the village during the potato famine. In 1850 the family consulted architect Philip Charles Hardwick who “with much talent and judgment completed the south and west fronts, after his own designs, following the general plan as intended by the late Earl,” the Earl’s widow wrote. The initial phase of construction was completed under master mason, James Connolly. Along the top of the building an extract of psalm 127:1 is made from carved stone: “Except the Lord build the house, then labour is but lost that built it”.
Adare Manor house is set on a 840-acre (3.4 km²) estate and now operates as a five-star hotel, owned by J.P. McManus and features a magnificent 18 hole championship golf course designed by Robert Trent Jones Snr.

View the video here, which was produced for Adare Tidy Towns by Corbett Photography and Landyphoto.com)