Dublin Castle

Today it's a muddled jumble of buildings from different centuries, but there are parts of Dublin Castle which would be immediately recognised by the Lennoxes. In particular, the upper yard has changed little since it was laid out in its present form during the 18th century. Here are the State Apartments where successive Viceroys held balls and entertainments for society during the winter months. Much of the interior was restored this century after a fire in 1940, allowing plasterwork from other houses to be incorporated. The most notable parts of the building are St Patrick's Hall, a large ballroom with ceiling painted by Vincent Waldre in 1778, and the Throne Room, decorated in white and gold.

Tel: 01-6777129 for further information

Marino Casino, Clontarf, Dublin

The most perfect small building in Ireland, the casino is larger than most of today's homes. It was built by the Earl of Charlemont from 1758 onwards from the designs of Sir William Chambers and originally stood in the grounds of Marino House along with a number of other pleasure buildings. Everything except the casino has now been replaced by suburban housing estates and schools. It is in a highly refined neo-classical style, the exterior ornamented with stone-carved statues and urns (those on the roof are actually chimneys) while the interior has delicate stucco ceilings and inlaid floors. Tel: 01-8331618 for further information

Castletown, Celbridge, Co Kildare

This country's first - and greatest - Palladian home, Castletown was designed by Italian architect Alessandro Galilei and built by Speaker William Conolly, whose great-nephew Tom married Lady Louisa Lennox, the Duke of Richmond's daughter; she was only 15 at the time of her marriage. Much of Castletown's interior decoration can be ascribed to Lady Louisa, not least the print room which was executed by the house's chateleine along with her sister Lady Sarah Napier, and the first-floor long gallery decorated in the Pompeian style in 1776. Because it was being restored by the OPW while filming took place, Castletown did not feature in Aristocrats but, together with nearby Carton, this is the house most closely associated with the Lennox sisters. Tel: 01-6288252 for further information

Emo Court, Portarlington, Co Laois

One of the anachronistic locations appearing in Aristocrats, Emo was only begun in 1790 and incomplete when the first Earl of Portarlington, who had commissioned the house from James Gandon, died - of pneumonia - while on service during the 1798 uprising. Mayo, where he was attempting to put down the rebels, evidently did not suit him because his wife wrote of Foxford: "This is the most horrid place you can conceive; a wretched little town built upon the rocks." Due to shortage of funds, much of Emo was not finished until the mid-19th century and its decor is therefore rather different to the rococo and neo-classical styles which would have been familiar to the Lennoxes. Tel: 0502-26573 for further information

Kilmainham Gaol, Dublin

Following his arrest in a house on Thomas Street in May 1798, the wounded Lord Edward Fitzgerald was taken to Newgate Gaol where he died the following month. Newgate (designed by Thomas Cooley who was also responsible for Dublin's City Hall) has long since disappeared but Kilmainham was in use just in time for the 1798 uprising, having been finished two years earlier to the designs of Sir John Traile. Originally, it served Dublin County (Newgate served the city) and, at the time of construction, thanks to the spacious central court and tiered cells, would have been considered a model prison, even if it now looks rather grim and foreboding.

Tel: 01-4535984 for further information

Killruddery House, Bray, Co Wicklow

In the context of Aristocrats, the important feature of Killruddery is not the house - an early 19th-century Elizabethan-revival mansion subsequently truncated in the 1950s due to maintenance problems - but the gardens. These are an extremely rare example of 17th-century design in the classical French manner, which was largely swept away by the mania for "natural" English landscaping. Formal French gardens, inspired by the work of Le Notre, feature elements included at Killruddery such as long canals, avenues of lime, hornbeam and beech and topiary-bordered alleys. Killruddery is one of the few Irish properties still home to the family which first built it, the Brabazons, who were given the land in 1618.

Tel: 01-2862777 for further information

Malahide Castle, Co Dublin

Owned by Dublin County Council since 1976, for the previous eight centuries Malahide had been in the hands of the Talbots, who came to Ireland during the reign of Henry II. The castle is medieval in origin (as its Oak Room testifies) but has a number of 18th-century interiors thanks to a fire in 1760 which necessitated redecoration. The rococo stucco work in several rooms is attributed to Robert West, and the two drawing rooms are noted both for their fine doorcases and for the orange colour of the walls.

Tel: 01-8462516 for further information

Newman House, St Stephen's Green, Dublin

Actually two houses, Newman House takes its present name from Cardinal Newman, who helped to establish University College in Dublin. Number 85 St Stephen's Green was built by Captain Hugh Montgomery in 1738 and was the first house on the square to be fronted in stone. Since 1785, it has been known as Clanwilliam House after its then-owner Viscount Clanwilliam. Next door, number 86 was built almost 30 years after its neighbour Richard Whaley, father of the famous "Buck". Both buildings have wonderful plasterwork, that in 86 by Robert West with particularly lavish detailing on the stairwell, while number 85 contains two rooms decorated by the Lafanchini brothers.

Tel: 01-4757255 for further information

Powerscourt, Enniskerry, Co Wicklow

The interior of the house is gone - destroyed by fire in 1974 - so only the gardens of Powerscourt featured in Aristocrats. Yet, curiously, these did not exist during the lifetime of the Lennoxes. Prior to the last century, the ground outside the house fell away in a series of unadorned grass terraces. As seen today, the gardens are largely to the designs of Daniel Robertson, employed by the sixth Viscount Powerscourt who wrote that Robertson used to be "wheeled out on the Terrace in a wheelbarrow, with a bottle of sherry". Supposedly based on baroque gardens in Sicily, those in Powerscourt contain wonderful statuary and wrought-iron work leading down to the great pond.

Tel: 01-2046000 for further information

Royal Hospital, Kilmainham, Dublin

Based on Les Invalides in Paris, work began in 1680 on the Royal Hospital which was designed by the country's surveyor general Sir William Robinson. Like the Chelsea Hospital, Kilmainham was built as a home for old soldiers and contains a large central courtyard with a limestone arcade, where exercise could be taken in wet weather. Much of the interior, now occupied by the Museum of Modern Art, was always plain and functional. The two principal spaces are the chapel and the hall, the former with an elaborate ceiling in papier mache erected in 1902 - by that date, the original 17th-century plasterwork had started to decay rapidly.

Tel: 01-6129900 for further information

Aristocratsis out on video this week; RTE will be screening the series in the autumn