Trading Up
Sq m:139 (1,500 sq ft)
Bedrooms: 4/5
Bathrooms: 3
Broadband: Yes
There’s a bit of a hidden home feature to 61, Wyndham Downs — the curving front drive has enough space for a treehouse/kids’ playhouse, set a bit like a sentry’s box at the entrance.
The detached four/five bed home has a €285,000 asking price quoted by Andrea Whelan of Sherry FitzGerald, who says the owners have been in occupation here since the 1990s.
In their time, a rear sun room extension was put on, so now there’s just over 1,500 sq ft on offer.
There’s a study or a handy optional bed five to the left of the hall, and it faces a formal reception room, and both have bay windows to the house’s front. Behind is an 18’ by 11’ family roomplus kitchen/ breakfast room, which in turn leads to the decent sized conservatory, almost 15’ by 15’.
Upstairs are four bedrooms, one of them en suite, while the largest has a walk-in dressing room with WC and basin, and it would, perhaps, be an easy enough job to make into a second en suite shower room.
The main family bathroom, meanwhile, has a jacuzzi.
VERDICT: A versatile home for a family, with easy access to the Ballincollig bypass and the city’s ring road network, says Ms Whelan.
Calling all fashionistas — not only is the large home Lugano all primed for a tasty makeover but “it’s only an eight minute walk to BTs.”
That was one of the early, approving judgements on the Victoria Road property as it came to market this autumn — but you’d hardly do the walk to Brown Thomas’s in high heels in that precise time allowed. The decent, solid, respectable Victorian semi-detached three-storey house has a €485,000 guide quoted by Malcolm Tyrell Cohalan Downing, who quietly approves of all of its basics.
First up, it’s a super-convenient location, facing onto the recently enhanced Kennedy Park green area, with off-street parking and lawn, and a south-west facing back garden with old stone wall boundaries, glasshouse, and a couple of mature apple trees. It’s got good bones, and many original features, especially fireplaces, the two main ground level rooms are interconnecting making for light and space, and the kitchen’s a good size too, in a rear annexe, with a brick hearth for a range cooker. The first floor return has a bathroom and separate shower room, the front master bedroom is en suite, there’s one other bedroom behind, and the top floor has three more decent attic bedrooms, with good ceiling height and cast iron fireplaces.
VERDICT: A quality home with a feeling of generous space, just ready for a blast of personality; an interior designer’s input or a smart use of a colour card would work wonders on Lugano. And, BT’s is just a trot away.
There’s a bit of history and antiquity attached to this West Cork bungalow - the property sale includes an old stone house, the birthplace of an Ellen Buckley, who was married to the Fenian leader Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa. She was raised here at this Castlehaven/Castletownshend property, and became O’Donovan Rossa’s second wife after he was first widowed. She died in childbirth in 1863, and O’Donovan Rossa went on to have 13 children with a subsequent third wife.
Ellen Buckley’s family still live locally and the proud roots run deep, with the link recalled by Skibbereen estate agent Charles McCarthy as he markets the one-acre package with a €300,000 guide. It includes the old stone building (see image p2), with a fine arched old stone fireplace and hearth as a work of craft, but the building itself is now used for little more than practical storage purposes, and was re-roofed in recent decades.
There are rural and coastal views from the acre, about two miles west of Castletownshend, and the setting is private, up a country lane. The current house is a 1,250 sq ft two-bed, one en suite bungalow with good living room with sun terrace access, as well as dining area and study/den.
VERDICT: The link to the Fenian past is a quirk of Inane House.
There are only seven houses in the upmarket Co Kilkenny scheme Ardmillan, in Thomastown, and the showhouse is already sold, to a buyer with Waterford roots.
Set just a few hundred metres from the gates of the Mount Juliet estate and golf course, each of the seven is on a site of 0.6/0.7 of an acre, says Ardmillan selling agent John Buggy. Each house is slightly different, in terms of size and facade appearance, and the cheapest is €325,000, rising past €350,000 for some of the others. They’ve each got three en suite bathrooms, and some are four-beds, others are five bedroomed.
Developer Kevin Thorpe designed the scheme to give country living benefits, along with urban-level services, notes Mr Buggy. The two-storey, large dormer houses have oak kitchens, zoned oil heating, finished floors and carpets, Corball fireplace, etc. There’s planning permission for a detached garage in each back garden.
Ardmillan (Thomastown was famous for its mills, with no less than 12 water-powered mills at one stage, now it’s a noted crafts and art hub) is within a walk of the train station, and 16kms from Kilkenny city, with the M9 to Dublin-Waterford with easy reach.
VERDICT: Thomastown is one of Kilkenny’s special Nore-set villages.
CONNECT WITH US TODAY
Be the first to know the latest news and updates
