No reason to look down on neighbours

Tommy Barker reports on two houses separated by €50,000 at Gilabbey Rock

Just €50,000 and a cliff separates them — that’s the quip from estate agent Jarlath Boyd, about No 7 Gilabbey Terrace, and No 10 Gilabbey Park, near UCC in Cork City.

His two starter-home price bracket, inner-suburban homes are top and bottom of the Gilabbey Rock, a cliff-like precipice on the city side of UCC.

Cheaper of the two is No 7 Gilabbey Terrace, part of two rows of compact red-brick houses on Gilabbey Street, near St Fin Barre’s Cathedral and about 100 years or so old.

It’s deceptively spacious, says Mr Boyd of Timothy Sullivan Associates (and when’s the last time you heard a place being described as deceptively pokey?) with two ground floor reception rooms, kitchen/dining room, and ground floor bathroom, along with three overhead bedrooms. Features include old floor tiling.

Just go up the price scale a chunk, to €205,000 and head down to the bottom of the Gilabbey Rock to No 10 Gilabbey Park which is at the end of Donovan’s Road. Here, there’s a larger three-bed mid-terraced house with gardens, and it comes with a higher spec, with one en suite bedroom, new kitchen, sitting room and ground floor shower room. There’s also access to the south-west aspected rear gardens. Older readers will remember the days when circuses used to perform at Gilabbey Park, accompanied by the trumpet of elephants, and the roar of lions and tigers.

VERDICT: Price choice on the doorstep of UCC.