My Home: Ballyvolane House, Castlelyons, Co. Cork

Justin and Jenny Green, the proprietors of Ballyvolane House, recommend the places they like to visit in their corner of Ireland.

Justin grew up at Ballyvolane House when it was an active dairy farm and his school holidays involved milking cows, driving tractors, feeding animals and digging holes. In the mid-1980s, his parents, Jeremy and Merrie, transitioned from farming to hospitality and opened Ballyvolane House to guests. I was born in London and grew up in Hong Kong, where I met Justin in 1997 while working at Mandarin Oriental Hong Kong. We are both hotel school graduates and spent many years working in luxury hotels in Asia including The Legian Bali, The Jumeirah Group Dubai and prior to taking over the reins at Ballyvolane House in 2004, we worked for Soho House where Justin was General Manager of Babington House in Somerset. In 2015 Justin launched Bertha’s Revenge Gin along with his business partner Antony Jackson (a school friend). The distillery is located in the farmyard at Ballyvolane House and is a huge part of the guest experience. Justin and I are passionate about the countryside and sustainability and work hard to preserve and restore the house and biodiversity of the wider estate. We also have three children Toby 22, Jamie 19 and Fleur 16 who have all grown up here.

Read more in the July issue…