House of the week

HOUSES in the Paddocks in Douglas, Cork are coming up on 25 years of age — and in that period, they’ve never lost their hold in the popularity stakes.

The design, day one, was modestly up-market, at least seen through the prism of what followed during the Celtic Tiger era, when detached homes soared to sizes of between 3,000 and 4,000 sq ft and even larger, with more en-suites and plumbing than you could shake a bath brush or back-scrub at.

A handful of the bigger Paddocks homes did, indeed, top 3,000 sq ft in size, and boom-time sale prices went between €1m and €1.5m.