No ordinary run of the mill

THREE into one does go, in the case of the old mill cottages in Cork’s Ballincurrig.

Once a hive of a local linen industry, with a mill building and cottages at its hill and streamside conjunction, it is now a picturesque roadside and valley-set village in east Cork.

Ballincurrig — near Lisgoold and six miles from Midleton, on a quiet back road which could lead you to alternative back roads to Cork if you had sat nav or the local ‘smarts’ (and Smarts is the name of the local pub) — is where Riverbank House has risen up, replacing a trio of smaller mill workers’ cottages which had been ear-marked for restoration but which it turned out had gone too far for salvation.