Commuting to a tranquil country house 21 miles from Dublin

Co Kildare/€3.25m: "Within comfortable commuting distance of Dublin" is a phrase currently used with gay abandon to describe settlements in south Wexford or north Tipperary as remote, inaccessible and hostile to "invaders" as Al-Qaeda fortresses in the Tora Bora mountains.

Donadea, Co Kildare, however, is just 21 miles from St Stephen's Green.

The Old Rectory there is likely to appeal to an affluent Dublin family seeking the simple pleasures of the countryside but with easy access to metropolitan sophistication.

The current owners, a novelist and his wife whose children have grown up, are "downsizing" so this spacious 483sq m (5,200sq ft) imposing and solidly traditional 18th century country house will be sold at auction by Ganly Walters in Dublin on May 23rd. It carries an advised minimum value (AMV) of €3.25 million.

The price tag reflects the inclusion of 14.4 acres of gardens and woodland which provide absolute rural privacy and tranquillity close to the capital. A Coillte-managed 640-acre forest park is also on the doorstep.

A survey carried out by the Halifax Building Society found "The Old Rectory" to be the 12th most popular house name in Britain. The majority glorying in that moniker are neither old nor at all likely to have the vicar round for a pot of Earl Grey.

But in Ireland, old rectories are just that. This example at Donadea is classically Georgian with many quirky and appealing features: a splendid library with a secret door concealed by book shelving; a bathroom with its own sauna; and a spectacular, glass-turreted double-height sunroom facing a Liscannor slate terrace and, beyond, a lawn undulating like an emerald-hued infinity pool.

Water from a private well is piped into the house and is considered to be so refreshing that guests have been known to take it away in bottles.

Large drawing and diningrooms are ideal for gregarious country house entertaining - following a day riding to hounds (Ward Union, Kildare and Meath), a flutter at the gee-gees (Naas, Punchestown and the Curragh) or a bracing round at the K-Club (just under eight miles away).

There's a vast kitchen, cosy family room, study, utility room and wine store. Ah, and a bootroom. Not, sadly, a place of detention for surly teenagers who answer you with the word "whatever" but a most civilised tradition of "Anglo" country houses whereby a utility room is designated for the storage of muddy riding and wellington boots. "Native" houses had no such luxuries - lacking both the space and the footwear.

The rambling first floor has six bedrooms, two of which are en suite, a large bathroom and shower room.

Outside, there's a cherry and apple orchard, walnut grove, tennis court, croquet lawn, three-car garage and a log-house - also used to store peat from the nearby bog, thus enabling the house's many hearths to glow with comforting turf fires in winter. There are three stables and ample paddocks.

If your little princess has outgrown the back garden of a 2-4-6 redbrick, dreams of National Velvet, and is pestering you to replace My Little Pony with Black Beauty, then perhaps you should take a look.