The great escape: Time travel at Ard na Sidhe Country House 

Home Editor Eve Kelliher visits the Arts and Crafts manor built as her 'dream house' by its first owner on the shores of Caragh Lake

The exterior of Ard na Sidhe Country House, which was built in 1913.

We're hurtling down a tree-lined avenue, right out of time and place. I challenge anyone not to think of Daphne du Maurier’s Manderley.

As we approach Ard na Sidhe Country House, on the Ring of Kerry, I’m also zooming back in time and into another aristocratic abode — closer to home, in neighbouring County Cork — the big house in Elizabeth Bowen’s coming-of-age novel, The Last September.