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Includes content from Vanishing Ireland, Easter Dawn, Dublin Docklands, The Irish Pub, Maxol and many more, as well as Waterways Ireland, the Past Tracks project and hundreds of historical articles on Irish families, houses, companies and events.
Big House Hospitality & the Hidden Ireland
By 1986, less than 300 of the big houses were still in the hands of the families who had built or occupied them during the days when Ireland was a British colony. That same year, the heads of some of these families joined forces with some of those who had purchased, restored or converted such buildings during the decades since independence. They came together under a shared belief that the time had come to open their front doors, and the doors of the bedrooms upstairs, to welcome in paying guests. Not as hotels, of course, but as private homes where people could stay. And so the Hidden Ireland was born.