House of the week

IT will be a hard job keeping up with the neighbours at this farmhouse buy — but, it’s likely the buyers will in any case be fairly well-heeled, and Hunter wellington-shod.

Newly up for sale, after the death of its bachelor farm owner, is a rare, rare west Cork offering to get the covetous mind’s cogs a-whirring. This lot has half a mile of sheltered sea frontage to wonderful Roaringwater Bay, 30 acres of private headland with views of islands and the Fastnet Lighthouse, an old-style but solid century-old farmhouse, practical yard and outbuildings — and a castle.

Welcome to Rossbrin Castle, first and foremost, one of the signal towers strategically placed along the west Cork shoreline, all within sight of one another, and in varying states of repair. Next stop east along the way, actor Jeremy Irons’s fully restored colourful Kilcoe Castle is an object lesson in castle renovation. But, he didn’t start with a tower in as parlous and precipitous a state as Rossbrin.