House of the week: Lisheen, Skibbereen €475,000

Size: Sq m 121 (1,300 sq ft)

THE rise in sterling’s strength may help to bring a UK buyer to Glebe Shore, at Skibbereen’s Aghadown/Lisheen area along the Ilen river. Equally a buyer might come from far closer to home — how about next door?

Glebe Shore carries a guide of €475,000 with agents Charles P McCarthy in Skibbereen, who’ve just recently gone ‘sale agreed’ on Tony O’Reilly’s Glandore home Shorecliff, at about €1.7m, a sale very much at AIB’s insistence and mentioned in summer court despatches.

And, last year the same auctioneering firm had Glebe House at Aghadown/Lisheen for sale for AIB’s own chief executive, David Duffy, for €4-5m, for a high-quality Georgian home of 10,5500 sq ft on nine acres. AIB boss Mr Duffy is trading down after ten years here, and several improvements and extensions. Glebe House used to be owned by telecoms entrepreneur Leonard Donnelly, and before that was a treatment centre for of European drug addicts. With parents living locally and children college-bound, Mr Duffy is seeking something smaller, possibly in the same locality and its agents are now Sherry FitzGerald and Christies, guidng a reduced €3.7m.

How about next door as a trading down option? Glebe Shore, with its revised €475,000 guide, is a more modest 1,300 sq ft, dormer with a bit of elevation to it and with a quality interior, and it’s on four acres of lovely-sited land right where the Ilen River (which flows through Skibbereen) broadens into Roaringwater Bay, with the sea beyond. Agent Maeve McCarthy says they’ve had recent interest from the UK given sterling’s resurgence, and other sterling characters nearby include the likes of Sir David Puttnam, actor Jeremy Irons, now an honorary Corkman, and the owners of the exquisite Inish Beg estate, which is open to visitors and whose gardens were part of last week’s Baltimore Secret Garden Trail.

Selling for a Donegal woman who bought here about a decade ago, and who now is looking to be closer to home, Ms McCarthy describes Glebe Shore as being “in a most delightful, secluded location with extensive private direct access to the Ilen River estuary.” The simple expedient of slotting in a simple pontoon would open up all-tides access to sailing waters at Roaring Water Bay, Baltimore harbour and the myriad island beyond, she suggests.

A simple country farm gate and drive leads to Glebe Shore’s gardens and sub-tropical planting, with most of the four acres in paddock, sloping to the water’s edge and to two shingle beaches.

Set four miles out the Ilen River from Skibbereen town, and thus about 90 minutes from Cork City and airport, the house dates to the 1990s and has been very well kept and enhanced, with a garage with WC and shower, handy for those coming in off boats wet, or down from sweaty horses.

Internally, this home has two receptions, one a large 21’ by 14’ room with triple aspect and carved timber fire surround with cast iron insert, there’s a second more standard-sized (13’ by 11’) room, with fireplace and both have exposed ceiling beams, and there’s also a cheerful conservatory.

Paint work and decor is all crisp and white, contrasting with varnished timber floors and chunky wooden kitchen worktops on top of hand-painted units, with island, etc.

One of the property’s three bedrooms is at ground level by a guest WC, and overhead are two bedrooms, one with en suite and the main, large 21’ by 14’ master bedroom has access to the main bathroom, with shower, bath and sauna. There’s a further shower in the c 200 sq ft detached garage.

VERDICT: Came to market in spring, but should be a summer seller.