Trendsetter on the long and winding road

HOUSES in Cork city tend to go up hill and down dale: they follow the contours of the hills cradling the inner city basin.

Houses on Nicholas Street fit the profile down to the ground, jostling shoulder to shoulder with neighbouring homes, linking Douglas Street on the lower end with Evergreen Street at the top.

It’s a steep climb, the street is narrow, and house residents are obliged to park cars outside doors and up on the footpath, putting their faith in reliable handbrakes and abandoned on short, house-width stretches of fairly level pavement adding to the higgledy-piggledy air.