Home and history rhyme

CLOSE to the long shadows of one of Cork city’s oldest pieces of architecture, the 13th century Red Abbey, is Margaret Street, where houses built in the old city marsh area are still standing proud, 250 years after construction.

A lovely, original, feel-good home here with its own historical quirks is 14, Margaret Street. Its title deeds from 1767 granted its first owner, a seafarer called George Randall, quayage rights to moor a boat by the garden’s end.

One of the current family of owners, who grew up here, recalls reclaiming that right along with singer Jimmy Crowley, back in the 1980s, when they rowed an inflatable dinghy up to George’s Quay, and carted it into Callnan’s bar on the quay for a celebration.