Starter home: Roman St, Cork City €60,000

The former home of a Lord Mayor is tiny, but it’s centrally located.

Sq m 49 (540 sq ft)

Bedrooms: 2

Bathrooms: 1

BER: G

Best Feature: Niche buy

THERE are several good reasons to view this slender home, No 17 Church Avenue, off Cork City’s Roman Street.

One is that after last weekend’s inaugural Open House Cork event, 275 people queued to view an even narrower terrace home at Red Abbey Street, which was renovated by an architect, curious to see how much living can be squeezed into the smallest of homes.

The second reason is the price: it’s just €60,000, via estate agent Fiona Waldron, of Jeremy Murphy & Associates.

The third reason: 100 years ago, it was the home of a Donal O’Callaghan, who became Lord Mayor of Cork after the deaths of his predecessors Tomás MacCurtain and Terence McSwiney in 1920.

Resident in more recent years in No 17 was a gentleman married into the O’Callaghan family, and now needs work.

It’s likely to date to 1900, reckons Ms Waldron, and is about as small as they come, a fact signalled by the entrance hall: it’s less than a metre square, and the main living room is only 1.7m by 3.8m — that’s five and a half feet wide by 12 feet long, in imperial measure, a term that’s hardly appropriate in a proud Republican home.

The kitchen’s 8’ by 12’ and overhead are two bedrooms, and a bathroom, while behind is a small yard.

Location is on hilly back lane, almost in the shadow of St Anne’s Cathedral Shandon, and near the North Cathedral. Open viewings started this week, and among those early in were, ahem, small builders.

VERDICT: A thin slice of Cork history, in an atmospheric city quarter.