Cape Clear Island home for  €160,000

Had a Happy Isthmus? West Cork’s Cape Clear island is in two solid masses, linked by a narrowed section of land known as an isthmus between its north and south harbours - and that’s where this Cummer home now up for sale is set.

Overlooking south harbour, which shelters passing yachts in summer, this adapted three-bed traditional island home carries a €160,000 price tag with agent Séan Carmody of Charles P McCarthy, on the mainland at Skibbereen.

It’s near shops and bars, hostels and a glamping campsite, and is a five minute walk from the ferry at North Harbour, where a new berthing pier will be completed for this coming summer.

Set right by the hilly, wending road to the south harbour and gaeltacht hostels, the three-bed home is on a compact site, and has kept character while also getting some modernising touches.

Cape Clear, between Sherkin Island and the Fastnet, is three miles long and a mile and a half wide, has a year-round population of about 100 which expands by multiples in summer, and is a 45 minute ferry ride from Baltimore.

VERDICT: Cape Clear is quite magical, visited by flocks of rare birds and Irish language students each summer, and its wending boreens are literally on this house’s doorstep.