House of the week

It’s a different world, a magical place, on an easy-to-reach doorstep.

Few people know about Carrigillihy, but it leaves an impression, if you’re prepared to roll up your sleeves, or trousers, and immerse yourself in it.

Protected from the Atlantic by the sheer rock Carrig an Stácha, and by the more low-lying Rabbit Island, the cove at Carrigilllihy and its tiny community of a few dozen houses, is one of the most sheltered spots on the west Cork coastline. It’s a hidden cul de sac a couple of miles from Union Hall, 20 minutes or so from Skibbereen and Clonakilty, an hour and a bit from Cork and a few more hours from London. Yet, it’s another world.

“You’d see the stress on the children’s faces when they first come over from London, and then after a day or two here it evaporates, they just love it,” says ‘granny’ Joan Cox, the owner of a special slice of Carrigillihy, with its gardens dropping down to the sea.

She herself grew up in Britain, but spent her childhood summers near Union Hall when her mother Kathleen Cox — a native west Cork woman — came home to visit.

Her mother eventually took over her own brother Mike’s Carrigillihy cottage, built in 1911, and extended it in the 1960s. She passed away this year, aged 93, and now her home comes up for sale as a new chapter in its life beckons.

Having spent her summers in the locale, with her own three sons, she’s now passing the beach baton to her grandchildren for three generations of continuity. Joan Cox is pragmatic enough about the hoped for sale: “We can always come back and rent,” she explains, before mentioning how soft the children find the drinking water, how utterly still are the nights. how clear the skies and how animated the children are on the beach once the city stress is unpeeled.

She is a great ambassador for the simple joys of Carrigillihy, of messing about in punts, paddling the inlet’s indentations and pools, balming on the shelving shingle beach, and watching children playing shop — gathering, displaying and selling seashells.

You can almost hear the swell of the tongue-twister “She sell sea-shells, on the seashore...” waxing in the background.

Out of such simple pleasures lifelong memories of childhood idylls are forged.

Joan adds lyrically to the picture, with talk of rock pools and dives, dogs diving in to retrieve sticks, wet suits and kayaks, punts and parties on Rabbit Island (an easy 10-minute paddle from the inlet’s mouth.)

And then there’s the wildlife on the hills across from this family’s retreat, foxes and rabbit and hares, and seals. There are otters too, further out.

Carrigillihy is the sort of place that will be wasted on those whose pulse doesn’t pick up at such prospects. It’s the good life, simply.

And, now back to business: This property mix, one of a handful right on the cove’s edge by the slip, comes up for sale this weekend with estate agent Ann O’Mahony of Sherry FitzGerald in Cork city, whose own family home is nearby in Union Hall — so she also is infected by the beach-bug, or at least somewhat biased in her assessment that “it’s bliss”.

Joint selling agents are Sherry FitzGerald O’Neill in Clonakilty, and the guide price for the package of three-bed extended cottage (one bedroom is at ground level), one-bed guest bungalow and stove-heated studio, all on a half an acre, is €640,000.

The one-bed bungalow was only built in 2008, and has an open plan living/kitchen/dining area plus bedroom and bathroom, and, like the main house, it has oil central heating, as well as a multi-fuel stove.

There’s also a detached studio about 20’ to the south, which could be imaginatively linked to the existing bungalow, either by block-work, glazing, or garden pergola. And, there’s also an old shed which was rebuilt around the same time the bungalow was built, with a simple studio/bedroom with a solid-fuel wood burner.

It’s all pristine, spotless but unflashy, low-key, at home on its half-acre of garden happily planted with palms, African daisies, agapanthus, as well as the now-native montbretia and fuchsia. The hedges are trimmed to keep the water views flooding in, with a variety of small boats tethered to vivid pink and orange buoys, and gulls pinned like sentinels to the gunnels.

At this time of year, there’s more boat traffic than cars, and even at that, the activity is minimal, leisurely. And, in winter “you’d be lucky to see two cars down here in a day,” adds Joan approvingly.

VERDICT: More than the sum of its parts. Carrigillihy beckons with boats for island picnics, bodyboards, buckets and bliss.