Old Schoolhouse out west

THE Old Schoolhouse, Lough Ine, is self-descriptive, really — but the price and location may be the clincher for anyone sitting on the fence when it comes to a holiday home buy.

This little beauty adjoins Europe’s largest inland salt water lake, Lough Ine, and is set in a nature reserve in one of the loveliest and most accessible areas of West Cork.

The four to five-bed house is on the market with Pat Maguire of Pat Maguire properties, for €270,000 (and cash buyers could probably take a scelp off that), and is two miles to Baltimore and a short spin to Skibbereen. Dating from the 1900s, the two-storey house stands on three-quarters of an acre of gardens and comes with a large lock-up garage.