Blackwater Valley’s hidden mansion

Half of the original house here burned down in the 1900s, but there’s still more than enough to go around, says Tommy Barker.

YOU feel the antiquity in the very stones long before you cross the threshold of Rockforest House, in Munster’s Blackwater Valley — the entrance gates alone pre-date the house, dating to Elizabethan times.

Wind down the approach avenue, with the river valley (oft called the Irish Rhine) beckoning beyond, and you quickly realise that this most authentic and eccentric of period homes has a long, proud pedigree.