The last house in coastal enclave

WEATHERING the downturn is a coastal scheme with a name like a familiar, old-school Irish essay — Cois Farraige, beside the sea.

This seaside scheme of just 15 houses, at Owenahincha west Cork, is now down to the last remaining house to sell. Finally.

Three sales earlier this year saw the development, 200 yards from the sea, between Clonakilty and Rosscarbery, find a handful of appreciative new owners and occupants. Number 11 featured in these pages in February, guiding at €245,000, showing some price resilience: the conventional wisdom is that the property market is now dipping back to 2002 levels, but the first house sales in Cois Farraige were back in 2004, for around €230,000, and the most recent sales have held to this sort of threshold.