Antiquity never looked so good or so big

FOR around the price of a decent red-brick southside Dublin family home, a house hunter prepared to travel can pick up a fully restored country estate-type house on acres of ground with out-buildings, pond and a business as well.

Fortsingleton House is a fine old Georgian country seat, in the heart of tranquil Co Monaghan countryside, just of the N2 near Emyvale, putting it within an hour’s drive of Belfast, and a couple of hours from Dublin.

But, pricewise, it is a world away from either of those two cities, with a 700,000 guide quoted by Nancy Donlon of Gunne auctioneers in Monaghan.