Welcome to the pleasure domes of Ireland

By EWAN MCDONALD

A solitary fish jumps in the still waters of the Grand Canal, momentarily breaking the oily surface and sending a succession of slow ripples to lose themselves in the reeds and grasses that fringe the muddy banks.

In the distance, beyond the gaunt branches of the wintry trees dotting the countryside, the grey facade of a classical Georgian house can be glimpsed. Its position on a knoll above the canal affords a view down the length of the waterway as it winds its way from the River Shannon towards Dublin.

Situated in County Kildare, the heart of Ireland's horse-breeding and racing country, the handsome house is fittingly surrounded by rolling fields that are home to a growing number of fine racehorses.

A new, horseshoe-shaped stable stands as a testimony to the passion which Ronnie Wood, guitarist with the Rolling Stones, has been pursuing for the past 10 years.

A betting man since his childhood days when his father would send him down to the bookmakers, Ronnie Wood's own horses are now winning races for him - a thrill he has not yet quite got used to."

Proof, then, that playing with the Rolling Stones can get you satisfaction.

In Wood's retreat, his interior designer wife Jo has created an exotic pool house to house the Olympic-size swimming pool.

The original stables have been converted into recording studios where the master of the house and his mates practise. And it has its own pub, Yer Father's Yacht, on the grounds ... well, did. The master recently faced his difficulties with the demon drink and decided to get in the demolishers to deliver him from temptation, once and for all.

Wood's paradise has more than enough desirable features for his little piece of real estate to be one of 20 castles and cottages, farmhouses and follies featured in Private Ireland, by Simon McBride and Karen Howes (Co & Bear/Peribo, $89.95).

Here is life on a grand scale: the couple who have lived at Grey Abbey, below the Mourne Mountains, for 30 years, he as Sotheby's representative in Northern Ireland. "All that has changed in the intervening years is that Bill and Daphne do not enjoy the services of a footman," the authors comment.

And Glenarm Castle, given to Randal Dunluce on his 25th birthday by his father, the Earl of Antrim. Thanks, dad: the place was a ruin because of a series of fires over the centuries. It had burned in 1929, when the housekeeper stoked up the fire to keep her ancient featherless parrot warm, and again in 1965. Only a kitchen remained.

Simple pleasure domes, too: the 500-year-old cottage restored to make a home away from the city for a writer and her family; the tiny pre-famine cottage on Galway Bay. And the modern, as one of the five oldest houses in Dublin is saved from demolition and reborn as a modern townhouse on the city's quays.