Perfect for parking

IT’S QUIET up Rockboro Avenue way — the residents like it this way, and over-zealous car clampers seem to like to keep it that way too.

Just off Cork city’s Old Blackrock Road near the South Infirmary hospital, Rockboro Avenue links down to the Boreenmanna Road and the busy south link road is only 100 yards away, although you’d hardly know it.

There’s just a couple of dozen c 1930s-built homes here on this sloping avenue, within a short walk of the city centre, and house sales are few and far between.

About the most action seen round here is the very regular arrival of parking violation clampers and their pick-up van: with country visitors aplenty to the South Infirmary seeing it as a possible place to park when popping round to see patients, the avenue has a reputation for easy pickings for the parking enforcers.

No worries at 17 Rockboro Avenue as it has off-street parking behind its hefty gates for a good handful of occupants’ cars.

Also called Derreen, after a spot in Kerry, No 17 is a spotless and extended early ‘30s semi-d, with extra space put on to the back, at both ground and first floor level.

There’s more space than you’d ever expect when passing by outside, and it is all good stuff too.

It now has a fourth bedroom upstairs, where three of the four are good doubles, there’s an excellent large main family bathroom, a separate shower room too, and downstairs there’s a third loo, so the plumbing is clearly up to spec.

There’s more. Double box bay windows in front open up the very attractive front reception room and the master bedroom directly above it, the back family room opens to a well-positioned deck, and the kitchen was extended out past the galley section to a wider cooking/dining space.

Then, off to the side (where the attached garage would have been) is a utility with rear garden access, next up is a home office/artist’s studio, and then giving way to the front of the house/drive is a hobby/tool space, all allowing for a very logical flow of uses.

No 17 aka Dereen is new to market with Ann O’Mahony of Sherry FitzGerald, who seeks offers around €375,000 for the c 1,650 sq ft four-bed, and she notes it is really going to suit a family looking for a ready-to-move base within easy reach of the city’s amenities. It has new carpets, good oak floors, un-marked painted walls, and a rich green wallpaper in the nicely ‘old fashioned’ front parlour, along with one of this house’s two original fireplaces.

The private/back garden faces west, and is down a few steps from the good raised deck, where all is ship-shape.

Overall condition inside and out has evidence of houseproud ownership. The owners are selling because their heart is in west Cork and they want to get back there.

“You can see the sun going doing over Barley Cove from here,” one of the occupants jokes, in a flight of fancy not even the most fanciful of estate agent would chance claiming. But, you can see for miles, and Calnan’s Tower in the city’s Tower Street is at least a visible sunset marker in the right, westerly direction, while the nearby south city ring/link road will get you on the right westerly track within minutes — clampers permitting.