House of the week

THE harbour views from 1, Woodside are pretty special — but effectively they were a trade-down/retirement compromise for the house’s current owner, Mrs Mary Porteous.

She was the woman of the house of the famous Bunnyconnellan hotel, restaurant and bar by the mouth of Cork harbour. Together with her late husband J McNeil ‘Jock’ Porteous from Renfrewshire in Scotland, they had built up and ran the Myrtleville seaside tourism venture best-knows as Bunny’s, from 1949 to 1976.

“It was a tough business. Hotel life isn’t the easiest, but you met some very interesting people,” she recalls. During her time, Bunny’s attracted visitors like Gypsy Moth IV’s solo sailor Sir Francis Chichester, Eamon DeValeral, actors like Boris Karloff and Sylvia Syms, and a host more Hollywood names associated with the Cork Film Festival, as well as Irish luminaries like Noel Purcell.