Bracing place to enjoy the fresh salt air and seaweed

THE plug might have been pulled on one of Ballybunion’s famed seaweed bath businesses, but there’s still a chance to take a bracing plunge by the water’s edge and the Ladies’ Strand.

While the town’s long tradition of health-inducing, iodine-immersion and seaweed wraps continues with the Collins family’s Ballybunion bath business, another of the experienced practitioners, the Dalys, finished up in the early 2000s. Seaweed baths and wraps are known for their therapeutic and de-stressing properties, and feature widely in luxury hotel spas — but in Ballybunion the experience is wholly authentic, with wrack and weed harvested daily from the Black Rocks.

Now, the former site of Dalys’ baths is to be developed for a small and pretty select number of holiday apartments and duplexes — seven units only.

The ocean is on the doorstep and, given Ballybunion’s strong draw for holiday makers in Kerry, north Cork, Limerick and elsewhere, as well as having international golfing interest, estate agent Mark Prendeville of Sherry FitzGerald Dillon Prendiville is confident of strong interest.

He is selling the seven, contemporary-styled units, which were designed by Limerick architect Eileen McNamara (she’s done several big homes for Munster rugby stars), for builder John Walsh and Cherry Fox Developments.

They range from 900 sq ft apartments to duplexes of 1,100 to 2,000 sq ft, all with direct, uninterrupted sea views and direct access to the beach.

Mr Prendiville says the location is “captivating”, and that’s not just because of the gated, private parking it comes with.

The units will be fully finished out and buyers can specify internal detailing and finishes, with prices via Sherry FitzGerald Dillon Prendiville from €295,000 to around €400,000 for the largest and best.