Cork: Mr Darcy approved

Longueville House, Mallow, Co Cork; tel: [phone]; longuevillehouse.ie; [e-mail]

LADIES of a certain disposition might be forgiven for imagining they had passed, or in extremis, brushed against Jane Austen’s Mr Darcy in one of Loungueville House’s many alluring nooks and crannies.

It would after all be the perfect location for Ms Austen to reassemble her wonderful, frighteningly real characters, each seemingly more and more relevant as the years pass by, to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the publication of one of the eternal, chastening novels of the English-speaking world — Pride and Prejudice.