House of the week

IT IS over 100 years since the peninsula curve and wooded hill at Currabinny was colonised with large homes for Cork’s merchant classes. Many served for years as summer and second homes, but now, the area’s very much a year-round community, at a sublime Cork harbour setting.

If you are into boats — or, just watching them go by — this is as good a berth as you could hope for

And, Currabinny’s as glorious and lusher than ever, it still has that removed air of gentility, while gardeners clearly love it as the cul de sac road in and out is verdant, colourful, tended and stocked with many tropical plants. In more ways than one it seems to have its own micro-climate.