Invite to Augusta National Still Pending? Adare Manor Is the Next Best Thing.
J.P. McManus made his fortune in racehorses, but the Irish billionaire's real passion may be golf. There is ample evidence to support this. He hosts a star-studded charity pro-am tournament that draws some of the biggest names in the sport, including Adam Scott, Jon Rahm, and Tiger Woods, who happens to be a good pal. He's a two-time winner of the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship, and just last fall he played alongside Rory McIlroy at the BMW PGA Championship Pro-Am. He's also a regular at the Masters—he's probably there right now, discreetly mingling with fellow billionaires inside Berckmans Place (#IYKYK). And then there is his pièce de résistance: Adare Manor.
Adare Manor isn't a country club. Nor is it strictly speaking just a golf resort. More accurately, it's an aristocratic pile-turned-hotel in County Limerick, Ireland, with nearly 200 years of history and more than 800 acres of land that has a golf course so fantastic it has earned a reputation as the "Augusta National of Ireland." Even if you're not a golfer, you'll know this is really high praise.
McManus was playing the long game when he bought Adare for €30 million back in 2015 and then spent a whole lot more to restore, renovate, and modernize the property. The preservation of the manor's 19th-century bones was naturally a priority. Adare's distinctive style was the vision of the eccentric 2nd Earl of Dunraven, who, in 1832, decided to replace his Georgian mansion with a Neo-Gothic manor, complete with gargoyles, parapets, stained glass windows, biblical scenes hand-carved into the walls, and soaring arches reminiscent of a medieval cathedral. (Fun fact: Adare is a rare example of a calendar house—an architectural style developed during the Elizabethan era—which means it has 365 windows, 52 chimneys, seven stone pillars, and four towers.)
"With the supervision of a Grade I conservation architect, we had a commitment to honor the past and preserve as much of the original character as possible," general manager Brendan O'Connor says of the project, which took 18 months and included, among other things, the addition of a new wing, new rooms and suites, a better spa, and a restaurant, the Oak Room, that earned a Michelin star in 2020.
Golf, too, was obviously high on the list of priorities for McManus, who harbored ambitions to turn County Limerick into a world-class golf destination. Adare, which became a hotel in the '80s when the Dunravens moved out, already had a good golf course. But McManus coveted a championship course, so he turned to architect Tom Fazio, whose most famous gig is at—where else?—Augusta National, where he has been primping and polishing those legendary azalea-framed greens since 1998. The investment paid off: In 2019, Adare Manor was selected to be the host of the 2027 Ryder Cup (for the uninitiated, this is basically the Olympics of golf).
And unlike at Augusta, the WAGs will have plenty to do at Adare. According to O'Connor, only about 15% of hotel guests opt to play a round during their stay. (Include Catherine Zeta Jones and Michael Douglas in this group: the couple, both avid golfers, were here last summer.) "There are so many reasons why people visit Adare," O'Connor says. "Golf is just one of them." As for the other ways to bide your time, the list is extensive. Falconry, horseback riding, game shooting, state-of-the-art Padel courts (and an instructor who will really kick your ass), fishing, archery, you get the idea.
There is also the very enticing option to simply soak in the blue-blooded luxuriousness of it all and do your best Lady Mary Crawley. Because it really won't take long to settle into the rhythms of aristocratic country life, and feel perfectly at home. Adare, which once hosted the Duke of York (before he became King George V), has a way of doing that—it impresses you with its grandeur, then swaddles you in sumptuous, and yet totally unpretentious, intimacy. Here, everyone is a countess. Though the real one, the Dowager Countess of Dunraven, whose former bedroom is now among the hotel's prettiest suites, still lives nearby and often drops in for tea in the Gallery. Does it get any more Downton Abbey than that?
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