I TEND not to make much of a distinction between Sunday and every other day, they're all working days.

I'm usually in Dublin for a few days during the week and in Limerick at the weekend . . . we live in a wing of the castle. I'm not a very spiritual person so Sunday doesn't mean much to me in that sense. If anything, I suffer from ancestor worship, like the Chinese. At Glin, I am stalked by the ghosts of the past . . . they were an eccentric lot.

At the moment I'm trying to get my life better organised and there's a lot of filing to be done. I have a lovely woman, Anna, who comes and helps.

It's very time-consuming but fascinating too . . . you find all sorts of things.

I've started work on my next book, which is going to be a history of life on the estate and in the castle . . . a memorial to the place, I suppose. There are a lot of old files to be gone through for that and I also have all the files for the book that I've just done with James Peill, Irish Furniture, that have to be packed away. I'm hoping that they'll find a home at Maynooth where they're in the process of setting up a degree course in decorative arts.

If I'm not filing, I'll probably be writing. I've been very lucky to find writing partners . . . Dr Ann Cruickshank, with whom I wrote Irish Painting, and now James Peill . . . who are happy to accommodate me by letting me write in conversation. If I had to actually do the writing myself the material would never have appeared. James works at Christie's so it suits him to come over and write at weekends.

Over the past few weeks I've also taken on the role of artist's chauffeur on Sundays.

My daughter Nesta is working on a collection of drawings of churches and ruins and graveyards around north Kerry so we've spent some pleasant days trundling around in the sunshine. It's very flat around here and I think rather neglected by tourists.

I go for a big walk up the hill behind the estate every day . . .

it's the only exercise I take. I usually go by myself because I walk very fast and people can't keep up with me. The only person who goes faster is Nesta. Then I might go and see guests who are staying at the castle, we have a lot of fascinating visitors.

It's quite an onerous responsibility, looking after an historic house. There's a tremendous amount of planning and although we have a manager, Bob Duff, I'm still very involved. We're embarking on a feasibility study to look at our options for the future . . . my priority is to preserve the uniqueness of the collections but of course there are commercial considerations.

I have three daughters who are often around on Sunday and now a granddaughter, Dora, who is eight months old and much doted upon by her aunts and grandparents. We all sit down together and have a lovely lunch on Sunday.

I'm an obsessive Sunday newspaper reader and in the evening I settle down with them all and clip out anything to do with heritage matters. I don't watch television but I read all the time . . . history and heritage in the main. I suppose it's an obsession.

'Irish Furniture' (Yale University Press, /70) is available from the Irish Georgian Society, www. igs. ie