Glorious Ballinahow House showcases its Tipperary history

Ballinahow, Tipperary €750,000

Done up not once, but twice – and how – is Tipperary’s Ballinahow House, on the edge of Tipperary town.

Dating to the 1830s, the Victorian home was first tackled in the late 1990s when the current owners moved in and started to upgrade.They then got a second wind in 2008 when they extended, bridging a courtyard gap from the main residence over to a separate old building, via a new, sympathetic and rendered link.

And, it all looks glorious, with respect for period old features, and lots of modern day comforts too. Ballinahow House runs to over 3,900 sq ft, so it’s big without being overwhelming, and won’t need an oil tanker to heat. It has five (or, up to seven, depending on uses of top floor rooms) bedrooms, with two en suite bathrooms, as well as a one-bed guest cottage.

On five acres, and with that all-essential tree-lined avenue, it is new to market this month with Sherry FitzGerald’s Benjamin Haythornthwaite in their Dublin country house wing, acting with local agent Tim Ryan of Sherry FitzGerald Ryan – who also happens to be its owner, and restorer, along with his wife Mairead Ryan. They’re selling with their youngest child just started college in Limerick, finding themselves with a suddenly empty nest.

Asking price is €750,000, and the agents describe it as a bit of a landmark home on the Galbally Road a few miles from Tipp town, familiar-looking to passing motorists going to Thurles GAA matches ,with intelligently laid out grounds and planting for increasing privacy.

The main section’s tall, up to three storeys under a slate roof and with ornate brick chimney detailing, recalling the fact that when it was first built, standards were to be suitable lofty, right up.

Now, having been empty for a couple of decades up the 1990s, it’s once more kept faith with that original ethos, with exposed stone all around, and with brick arches over windows and doors, whilst the side wing is finished in a soft, buttery-looking painted render. The house entrance is the very old original door, glossed up, while the one-bed guest cottage wing has a more ‘farm’ style half door entry point. Inside now, there’s a considerable five reception rooms, including a lovely lean-to sun room facing into the rear, sheltered courtyard with westerly aspect and views over the yard’s thousands of recently-laid rounded cobbles.

The same courtyard has a side gate to gardens, and a more formal arch entrance to the main sweep of approach drive. Courtyard buildings include a gym, car-port with electric gates, work sheds, utility, plus guest cottage.

Two of the house’s five beds have en suite bathrooms, and the master suite has a decent-sized dressing room. The heart of the home is, unsurprisingly, the kitchen/dining room, in the now-linked courtyard building with high, lofted cathedral-type ceilings, stout exposed beams, with central island, and there’s a mid-size cream-hued Aga range cooker. A brick arch and, just beyond, a sliding door, link the kitchen to one of the formal reception rooms, and the house has a good share of original fireplaces, with wood-burning stoves stoves in several, plus in the guest cottage.

There’s five acres with the property, so enough space certainly here for a few ponies in a 3.5 acre paddock, or for free-range kids and pets, and the land is described by Sherry FitzGerald as “pleasure grounds,” planted with mature hardwoods such as beech, ash, yew and London plane trees, with several seating spaces, lots of external lighting and some power points, and there’s even a pond, favoured by frogs.

“It’s a quintessential, idyllic country home in an ideal location for indoor and outdoor entertaining, with verandas,” says Mr Haythornthwaite, adding that the house has been wired for sound/entertainment system. At the €750,000 guide, and with little or nothing to do now bar move in, Ballinahow House could well be picked up by a lifestyle relocater.

VERDICT: Your money will go a long, long way at this Tipperary buy.