Short stay: Kilkea Castle Estate & Golf Club, Kildare, Ireland

Located just an hour’s drive from Dublin, Kilkea Castle is the oldest inhabited castle in Ireland. Originally built in 1180 by Hugh de Lacy, the Earl of Ulster and chief governor of Ireland, for Sir Walter de Riddlesford, a Norman knight, the castle was the seat of the Fitzgeralds, the Earls of Kildare, for almost 800 years.

Since falling out of the Fitzgerald ownership in 1960, Kilkea Castle experienced a number of different owners before being purchased in 2013 by Jay and Christy Cashman – an American businessman and his Hollywood actress wife – who then went about restoring the castle to its former glory, opening it as a luxury hotel in 2017, following a $30 million restoration and refurbishment. Together with its golf course,…