VIDEO: House of the week: Rochestown, Cork, €850,000 

IT’S AN island, but more in name than reality — welcome to Rochestown’s Hop Island, a hop, skip and a jump from suburban Cork, from Douglas village, and from the vital, arterial ring road.

One version of the origin of the name ‘Hop’ Island is its association in the mid 1700s with a Huguenot family and a Monsieur Lawrence De La Main, who had estates in France, and a dance school in Cork’s Rochestown, at this location.

The use of the word hop, after all, has a pedigree preceding the hops, Lindy hops and hip-hop moves of the 20th century.