The properties featured are certainly of the dream kind - you need to have a budget running to seven figures to buy one.

"Purchasing a country home is the equivalent of buying a lifestyle and the majority of our purchasers would have in excess of 1 to 3m to spend, " says Edward Townshend from the agents.

Last year, the firm handled some of the biggest country house sales, including Ashfield House and Suma Stud in Beauparc, Co Meath.

Overall, transactions totalled in excess of 70m.

The majority of this year's models are for sale by private treaty, and feature everything from a cutgranite, Victorian Gothic mansion at the base of the Sugar Loaf Mountain, designed by the aptly monikered William Vitruvius Morrison in 1837, to equally historic Bective Domain, the neoclassical mansion bordering the River Boyne, Co Meath.

A copy of the catalogue is available through the agents, 01-633 3700; email: info@colliersjs. com