Borris House is one of a handful of Irish country houses still lived in by the family it was built for. The MacMurrough Kavanaghs, descendants of the Kings of Leinster, have held this ground above the River Barrow since the 15th century, and the house is now home to the 16th generation. That continuity is the reason to come: a tour here ends not at a museum rope but in a working family home, and among the things it still holds is the Kavanagh Charter Horn, a 12th-century ceremonial horn that marks the family’s royal line.
The present house was built in 1731 by Morgan Kavanagh and given its Tudor-Gothic, battlemented look in an 1820 remodelling by the architects Richard and William Vitruvius Morrison. Look up at the windows on the way in: the carved hood mouldings finish in the heads of kings and queens – not real portraits, the guides will tell you, but idealised royalty, a reminder of the Kavanaghs’ Celtic kingship. During the 1798 Rebellion the rebels turned a howitzer on the house and battered the walls but couldn’t break them, and the building was repaired afterwards.
The tour and the lace
A visit is a guided one, which suits a lived-in house. Inside, the highlights are the Stapleton plaster ceilings, with their fine classical detailing, the family’s antique furniture, porcelain, silver and paintings, and the private Chapel of St Moling beside the house. If you only fix on two things, make them the Charter Horn and the ceilings.
The most human chapter is the lace. Borris Lace was begun on the estate during the Great Famine, associated with Lady Harriet Kavanagh, to give local women an income when there was none, and it grew into a recognised craft. The story is told in the restored Borris Lace Museum in the old Victorian laundry, with a short film on the family and house running in the restored granary. The Lace Garden, planted within the laundry walls in a near-white palette of lace-inspired flowers, picks up the same thread – though it’s openly a work in progress.
The grounds
Beyond the house, serpentine avenues wind through parkland with views out to Mount Leinster and the Blackstairs Mountains. Among the specimen trees are a Cedar of Lebanon, grown from Botanic Gardens seed and planted by Lady Harriet Kavanagh in 1870, a Tulip Tree and fern-leaf beeches, alongside an 18th-century ice house and the old stew pond. There’s a fairy trail through the woods for younger visitors. Be straight about access, though: the woodland paths are steep and uneven in places, wheelchair and pram access is restricted, and you’ll want proper shoes.
Visiting
The honest catch is the calendar: Borris House is not open year-round. It opens to the public only on scattered days, mainly across July and August with some other dates, from 12pm to 4pm, with house tours at 1pm and 2pm; other times are by appointment, so check ahead before driving. On open days it’s adults €12, OAP/student €10, and under-12s free. There’s free parking at the entrance, and you can usually park on Borris Main Street directly opposite the gate – one of the few Irish country houses sitting right beside its town. The Store in the gate lodge sells local craft and produce, and house and garden tickets can be bought there in season.
If the house is shut the day you’re passing, walk up onto Borris’s 16-arch limestone viaduct, built in 1860, for the long view down the Barrow valley.