A warm safe haven when storms blow over Dingle
IT’S a shamrock, but not a sugary one, done to Kerry shamroguery by an American-Irish couple with a knowing wink and a bit of style.
‘Cnoc Álainnis’ is aptly named, for it does indeed occupy a prime spot on a beautiful hillside.
Location is none other than famed and fabulous Dingle, and this 1998-built home is directly uphill from the town, about a 15 minute walk or a five minute spin by car.
Built to last — with the heft of hewn stone and a novel shape which opens up views, balconies and terraces from its shamrock ‘leaves’ and lower ground ‘stem’ — it is on the property market with estate agent Paul Stephenson of Sherry FitzGerald O’Connell who seeks €1.25 million for what he says is one of the town’s best and most unique residential offerings.
This shamrock’s roots date back to 1984, when a couple from Seattle ventured to Ireland, and Kerry, in search of Irish geneology.
The ‘woman of this house,’ now widowed, is Marilynn Ahlin, a writer, who returned to Dingle after she was bereaved to build what she says was a dream home, “in the sort of spot we wanted, a place to take your breath away by its beauty”.
After a bit of wrangling over plans with the Council, and the input of two designers — one in Kerry, the other in the US — the house you see here was complete.
Marilynn has used it to write, and to live in, for much of the year.
Her writings focus on Israel over the past century and a half and her first full length book, ‘Journey Into Zion’, will be published in New York next year.
“With the help of flexible local builder John McKenna from Annascaul, local designer James Milhench in Dingle and Brian Munson Associates in Tacoma in the States, as well as engineers Ó Muircheartaigh & O’Bambaire from Dingle, I took a simple shamrock design and expanded upon it to create the home known as Cnoc Álainn,” she says.
“My home office, overlooking the beauty of Ireland’s land and sea, has been a perfect place to be creative. Cnoc Álainn is an artist or writer’s paradise, and indeed it has been for me. It has also been a lovely place to entertain family and friends, as well as a warm, safe haven when the winter storms blow fiercely over Dingle,” she eulogises.
Set at the crest of a hill known as Baile na Buile (place of the milking), it has an all-stone exterior, softening its impact as it melts into a rugged mountain landscape behind.
Planting and landscaping is naturalistic, down to a running stream.
It is being put up for sale as Marilynn says its needs a full-time family of occupants but she aims to build again, on a smaller scale, in the Dingle area.
That’s the poetic end of the property and its pitch, the more prosaic description might run more along the lines of ... oh, 2,100 square feet of living space, spread out over two floors and a basement.
Accommodation includes three bedrooms, one en suite, bathroom, bright living and dining quarters, a kitchen big enough to cater for crowds, with separate laundry, utility and space for a granny flat or mother-in-law’s quarters at the basement level.
The house is on a two-thirds of an acre site, clearly elevated, with grazing commonage behind, so there’s little danger of being built around to the back.
The grounds are set out with stone border, slopes, a stream and waterfall, and exterior finishes are of stone and dark-hued materials so that the house doesn’t shout out its presence in a blast of look-at-me white PVC.
The interior is a steady mix of natural materials so there’s some exposed stone, especially in the central fireplace and hearth.
There’s lots of timber too, including floors, sheeted ceilings and exposed beams.
The French touch comes via the French doors — lots of them — off the kitchen, the dining room and the salon, all leading onto the large balcony which opens up the rest of the expansive Dingle harbour and hinterlands views.
“From green fields where sheep graze, to the waters of the Atlantic inlet as it winds in a curving path, creating a silver-blue frame for this beautiful site, it is Ireland at its best,” says Marilynn Ahlin, waxing some professional eloquence on her Irish home.
Slight variations on the same views are to be had from the French doors going out to individual balconies from each of three, shamrock-tip bedrooms, whence the views are the wearing of the green.
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