Line out for fine home

THE family home of top rugby player, Ronan O’Gara, is up for sale.

Almost hallowed ground, the spot where the four O'Gara boys Fergal, Ronan, Colin and Morgan sported and played (and churned up the lawns) is on Cork's Model Farm Road, near Nangle's Nursery.

Fahan, named after a village on the Inishowen Peninsula, is a 30-year-old home and has a nursery with a surprising 2,300 sq ft of space, thanks to the conversion skills of Ronan's parents, Joan and Fergal.

Over their 13-year tenure here, they expanded the original house to this size to cater for the needs of an active family. There's even a gym space or bright play room for the next family occupants with its budding stars or, for the more sedentary, it could take a pool table or tennis table. And for the really lazy, it's a sun room.

Fahan is by the entrance to Hilton, and is a detached bungalow with adaptable space and scope for up to six bedrooms. Originally on a half acre site, the grounds have been reduced.

When the three older lads have moved on Ronan's parents built a crisp, contemporary new home in the rear garden.

As a result, Fahan "is on a good quarter-acre site," says its selling agents Sheila O'Flynn and Norma Healy of Sherry FitzGerald, quoting a €725,000-plus guide price and predicting a strong market uptake.

It is private, extremely well-located on the popular Model Farm Road with easy access to the city, western suburbs and Ballincollig for shopping and the bypass road network.

There's an attic conversion with two bedrooms up here, plus a huge storage area left alongside to maximise its use.

Downstairs, there's a big open, almost American-style living/dining room, a kitchen/breakfast room, large porch entrance, study, up to four bedrooms (all with built-ins), the main bedroom in a quiet corner has an en suite bathroom (one could be a family room), a main bathroom, separate WC, several storage spaces, plus a long central hallway, the scene of many a sprint, ruck and ball-kicking episode. Mirrors got broken with regularity.

The O'Gara family spent a number of years living in California, but fortuitously returned to raise their growing brood and give them a rugby background.

Fergal senior and Joan were themselves competitive sports players, and Joan is the only one in the family to have played a final in Croke Park the boys never did take to camogie.