Knight for a neighbour Rose Martin

THE difference between the aristocracy and the rest of us is that they count — we all go back that far, it’s just that we don’t keep track.

And these days we're all flush enough to pick up a posh pile to go with our uncharted lineage. Take Glin, for example, where you can have an 18th century property on the banks of the Shannon for the small change sum of E800,000, along with seven acres of land. And you get to live near the Knight of Glin, who has 500 acres in his eponymous estate, village and townland and whose family came here in 1170 many of us, of course, were here before that.

Shannon Lawn House does exactly what it says on the tin its grounds run down to the Shannon estuary one mile west of the village of Glin.