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Wicklow: Russborough House Guided Tour Ticket
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From €15 per person
Russborough House is one of Ireland’s great Georgian mansions, sitting about 30 minutes from Dublin in the heart of County Wicklow. The one-hour guided tour takes you through the house with a local expert who knows its history inside out - from the Beit family who built it in the 1740s, to the many characters who’ve called it home in the centuries since.
Room by room, you’ll take in a world-class art collection that includes works by Rubens, Gainsborough, and Vermeer, alongside exquisite antiques and craftsmanship that’s specific to Russborough - ornate plasterwork, intricate woodcarvings, and the particular elegance that 18th-century grandeur produced when money was no object.
After the tour, the 200 acres of rolling parkland are yours to explore, with sweeping views across Blessington Lakes to the Wicklow Mountains. There’s an award-winning café on site serving homemade cakes, fresh sandwiches, and locally roasted coffee. The basement shop, recognised in the Shopkeepers of Ireland awards, is worth a look for gifts and Irish crafts.
Your visit ends at your own pace - there’s no rush out the door once the guided tour wraps.
The tour lasts approximately 1 hour. After the tour you’re free to explore the grounds and café at your own pace. Russborough House is located in County Wicklow, approximately 30 minutes from Dublin.
Ask about the Vernet Drawing Room specifically. The four paintings by Claude-Joseph Vernet - Morning, Midday, Sunset, Night - were commissioned for the specific dimensions of this room in the 1750s and have never left it. It’s the only interior in Ireland still containing the original artworks it was designed for. The plasterwork on the ceilings was done by the Lafranchini brothers, the same craftsmen who worked at Powerscourt. Worth asking your guide to linger here.
The robbery story is as good as any heist film. Russborough has been robbed four times - in 1974, 1986, 2001, and 2002. The first robbery was by Rose Dugdale, an Oxford-educated IRA operative who knocked on the side door with a story about car trouble and left with nineteen paintings. The 1986 robbery by Martin Cahill - the General - involved setting off the alarm, hiding in the bushes while the gardaí came and went, then going back in. Six minutes. Eighteen paintings. The house guide covers all of this and it is one of the more gripping hours you can have in an Irish country house.
Combine the house with the Blessington Greenway. The 6.5km Blessington Greenway starts at Avon Ri Lakeshore Resort on the edge of Blessington town and runs south along the shore of the Blessington Lakes - flat, paved, and ending at the gates of Russborough. You can walk it in one direction and arrange a pick-up at the other end, or treat it as an out-and-back from the town. The lake views from the path are the best way to understand how large the reservoir actually is.
After the tour, the parkland earns its time. The 200 acres include a walled garden, a maze, a birds of prey centre, and woodland walks. The sweeping view from the front terrace - south across the Blessington Lakes toward the Wicklow Mountains - is the pay-off for what is otherwise a relatively flat west Wicklow landscape.