Maranatha Country House Bed & Breakfast

Filled with morning light, the breakfast conservatory looks out over lawns and clipped bushes, the room where the day at Maranatha properly starts. Built in 1880 for Sir Richard Barter, the manor sits atop Hydro Hill, two kilometres from the centre of Blarney village and its castle. Six en suite rooms range from the plain Lavender room to the Regal Suite, which keeps a sunken bath and a double-jet whirlpool. One room, the Top Hat, takes its decor from the 1935 film of the same name. Ceilings run high and cornicing survives throughout, Victorian in scale but fitted with Wi-Fi, television, and modern plumbing in every room. Breakfast runs long: porridge or cereal, yoghurt, cheese, fresh berries, scones, croissants, brown bread, and a cooked Irish plate of free-range eggs, back bacon, and sausages, with coffee or tea to finish. Private gardens wrap the house and give it a quiet, wooded setting despite the short run into Cork city. Guests can reach the English Market, Cork City Gaol, and Fitzgerald Park within about fifteen minutes by car, and the Wild Atlantic Way starts not far beyond. Parking sits on site. It is a small, family-run house rather than a hotel, and the manor's period detail is kept rather than stripped out for something plainer.