Earlier times and days of gentrified pastimes are recalled in the name-place of Kinsale’s Bowling Green, Tommy Barker reports.

Anybody looking for a central Cork building of historical character will certainly be alert to the news that the buildings occupying 6-8A McCurtain St are for sale.

WHAT could be billed as a quirky, high-octane investment at a small bite size lot has just come to market with the proposed sale of Adventure Park and Kartworld, just off the M8 at Cork’s Watergrasshill.

Estate agent Jackie Cohalan will ‘split’ the difference with home hunters in 2017, offering split-level living options in locations like Glanmire and at Passage West, where she’s selling a dozen serviced sites, including five for split-level, new-builds.

Following ‘sale agreeds’ on two 1960s houses, one a detached, the other a semi-d, in the ‘old’ 1960s Bellair Estate off Douglas Road and by the start of Ballinlough Road in Cork, now comes a younger model, and a different house type too.

Although Curraheen needs work, it’s a Well Road prospect well worth considering.

New to market in central Cork city is a corner building looking across the street to Cork Courthouse.

Trish Dromey hears that this 10-year-old Carrigtwohill home is in good condition with maturing green surrounds and comfortable interior.

A local has emerged as the €2.3m-plus buyer of a Killarney town-centre, modern, retail-based investment property called The Courtyard.

An east Cork bar business, by the coast in pretty Shanagarry, has the world washing up at its counter, thanks to the nearby presence of the renowned Ballymaloe House, the Ballymaloe Cookery School, and the former Stephen Pearce Emporium, now a craft and design centre with cafe, by Kilkenny Design.

The estate agent has sold the sumptuous Ileclash three times before. It’s easy to see why, writes Tommy Barker.

The €4.25m Argos investment, in Cork City centre, facing the Capitol cinema redevelopment site, has been bought by neighbouring developers, Clarendon Properties, with a view to future redevelopment of their Queens Old Castle holding, on the Grand Parade.

The former Ballincollig DIY & Garden Centre — an offshoot of a previously relocated business which was originally the Victoria Cross Sawmills — on a good 1.8 acre site with high-quality existing buildings is up for sale, suitable for storage, trading or other new uses.

Investment property activity is continuing through to year’s end in and around Cork city centre streets by the Penneys site, which is expected to go forward for planning permission next month for a major redevelopment, after a two-year site assembly

There’s good news this month on the hospitality front for West Cork’s Skibbereen.

Hoping for a quick flip in the fast food sector is an investor who aims to off-load a Cork city McDonald’s restaurant that he bought last year for over €4 million.

Two of Cork city centre’s oldest, and deservedly cherished, buildings come for sale this week, side by side, on Sheares Street, with shades of London’s classic Spitalfields markets buildings to their credit.

A 32-acre landbank “with scope to be the next Eastgate Business Park” has come for sale alongside the Jack Lynch Tunnel in Cork, right by where new roundabout junctions are proposed for the €100m Dunkathel interchange upgrade.

PRICES are back on the march in Cork’s suburban and high-end Hettyfield: but, they are still are a long way short of boom-time levels of €1m and even €2m asking prices and sales.

There is scope for further development on an eight-acre plot on Cork City’s new Mallow Road/old Commons Road, as the long-established Commons Express Inn comes up for sale.

Tommy Barker visits a city outlier and townland that was recently a rural idyll, but now is an accessible and sought-after suburban stretch.

A good, clean three-bed semi-d has come to market at Laurel Avenue, in Carrigaline’s Ballea Woods, via agent Brian Olden of Cohalan Downing.

A further €1m-plus Cork city bar and nightclub sale has just concluded, with the Bowery on Tuckey Street selling off-market: it comes just as Wetherspoons are poised to reopen a premises now standing them a total investment of as much as €3.5m, a bar investment level seemingly back to boom time values.

AS the Nama sale of Wilton Shopping Centre inches forward, discount retailer Lidl is about to seek planning permission to join Aldi in the same Cork City western suburb.

Tommy Barker reports on an exceptional harbourside home, in impeccable order inside and out.

The historic Woodford bar in Cork city centre, with a licensed and drinks trade link stretching back to 1750, has been bought out of receivership for c €1.25 million.

THE city centre garage site of the former motor dealership, PJ O’Hea’s, which was in business for 87 years, has been put up for sale a decade after its short-lived relocation to East Gate.

WEST CORK has a few iconic bars with a reputation spreading over the waves — and the Algiers Inn is definitely up there with the best of them, hosting celebs, slaking thirsts and appearing in movies, ads and TV shows.

DO it up, or knock it down? Both are options at Rose Cottage, a restoration project — in the politest terms — on one of Cork’s most ‘prestigious’ addresses, the Model Farm Road. 

Tommy Barker on the charms of a centuries-old protected thatched cottage by the sea at Crosshaven that is priced to sell quickly.