Three free self-guided trails published as PDFs on Farmleigh's home page, from the great sycamore by the donkey field and the Cherry Walk to the sunken garden; walked from the courtyard and the free car park during estate hours (10:00 to 18:00, last entry 17:00); paths have some steps and slopes, the sunken garden terraces are steps only.
About
Farmleigh is a 78-acre estate on the north-west edge of Dublin's Phoenix Park, bought by the State from the Guinness family in 1999 as the Irish State Guest House. Edward Cecil Guinness, later the first Earl of Iveagh, built the mansion around a small Georgian house in the 1880s, and its rooms run from classical and Jacobean to Louis XV and XVI, with a library of rare books. The grounds are free to roam: a four-acre walled garden, a Dutch sunken garden, the fountain lawn, an ornamental lake with the Boathouse cafe on its deck, the 37-metre clock tower and a working farm of Kerry cattle, Galway sheep, horses, donkeys and alpacas, with three tree trails. Dogs on leads are welcome in the estate but not in any building. The house is closed to tours for the rest of 2026, so free outdoor tours of the estate run instead; enter only by the White's Road gate inside the park, as satnavs mislead.
Check today’s timesSee all times
- Farmleigh House and Estate10:00 – 18:00last entry 17:00; free estate tours 11:30 and 14:30; house closed
Opening times may change at short notice.
The grounds are open daily 10am to 6pm with last entry at 5pm, every day of the year; the Boathouse cafe opens daily 10am to 5pm except Christmas Day, St Stephen's Day, New Year's Day and during official state visits. Farmleigh House is closed for the remainder of 2026 to accommodate the EU Presidency (Farmleigh's own site cites maintenance works until further notice), so no house tours can be booked; free outdoor guided tours of the estate run at 11.30am and 2.30pm, weather permitting, with tickets from the guides' desk in the Motorhouse. Farmleigh Gallery opens during exhibitions only, Tuesday to Sunday and bank holiday Mondays 10am to 5pm, closed 1pm to 2pm. As a working government building the house and estate may close at short notice.
Toilets including wheelchair-accessible toilets are in the courtyard, the gallery and the Boathouse, all with baby changing. Paths have varied surfaces with some steps and slopes that get slippery; the sunken garden terraces are by steps only, the walled garden's gravel paths are mostly reachable for wheelchairs, and there is a lift. Free map from the Motorhouse, free WiFi, picnic benches in the courtyard, bike racks; cards accepted except American Express, no ATM. The clock tower is closed to the public. No feeding the ducks, no barbecues, drones or commercial photography. The Phoenix Park, its visitor centre and Aras an Uachtarain are separate OPW places.
Dogs: Dogs on a lead are welcome in the estate but not inside any building, including the house, galleries, Motorhouse reception, Boathouse cafe and toilets. Dogs on a lead may walk the whole free estate and parkland; no ticket is needed, and leads are required because horses, donkeys, cattle and sheep graze the grounds. Outside the gate the Phoenix Park (OPW) bans dogs from some areas and requires leads in others under its park regulations.
Photo: Farmleigh House, the Guinness family's mansion and now the Irish State Guest House, across a lawn of buttercups framed by mature trees. andrew mcmillan, CC BY 3.0. Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Farmleigh_-_panoramio.jpg. Licence: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0. Resized and cropped for display; derivatives retain the source licence.
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