Focus on country homes

There are encouraging signs of an appetite for Irish country house, writes Michael H Daniels

ALTHOUGH acknowledging the Irish economy is in rough shape, the New York Times commented this month that many are pointing to us as a model for how to get out of trouble — as Europe’s leaders scramble to overcome the continent’s debt problems.

Recent praise too from Merkel and Sarkozy… “an outstanding example” and “almost out of the crisis”. A nice change for us to be perceived as anything but an economic basket case fit only for ridicule. Then again, we had obligingly just coughed up billions when ‘asked’ to by our friendly European bank bondholders, who had helped us make that same basket with decades of cheap credit.