Echoes of the past in home for the present

Tommy Barker finds a mix of timeless solidity and contemporary flair in a five-bed home with stunning views in all directions.

YOU can see for miles, and miles, and then miles more, from this Farran home, appropriately called An Radharc, or The View.

Not only can you seen the 10 miles or so to the high points of Cork’s County Hall, St Fin Barre’s Cathedral and the Elysian tower in Cork city away to the east, but in a sense, you can also see into the past. Set into the flattened out fields in the plain of the River Bride, between the two rising ridges north and south of the N22 Cork Macroom, are the evocative remains of Kilcrea Friary or abbey, established by the Franciscan Observants in the 1460s. Centuries separate the abbey, beneath, and the earlier Kilcrea Castle’s ruins, while a tangible link to An Rahdarc is the fact that it, too, is built to last – stone-built.