Trading up: Glanmire, Cork €385,000

A lovely acre. That’s what the extended 1950s family home called Aisling Géarr stands on, above Glanmire village, a short distance from Cork City, with glorious views stretching back to Sarsfield Court Hospital, away in the distance, across a valley.

Now brought up to just under 2,000 sq ft after an extension in the late 1990s, this strong, five-bed home by the Hermitage is guided at €385,000 by Sheila O’Flynn and Gillian McDonnell of Sherry FitzGerald, who say it was originally built in the 1950s and that the name Aisling Géarr means ‘vivid dreams.’

The most vivid impression of all is the sheer lawned garden and site area, looking every bit of its acre, and walled in — it is some feature of stone and block-laying, to be sure, with a gentle gradient up along, from front to back, and well shrubbed in front, and to the immediate rear.