Trading Up: Watergrasshill, Cork €525,000

We’ve had the wind and the rain and the cold in the last week, but not yet the snow — so you haven’t missed any seasonal Christmas flurries yet, worry not: it’s just that the owners of of this large Watergrasshill home called Kealcille snapped this snowy shot when they were snug as bugs in this B3 BER rated, cosily warm home.

Kealcille, called after Kealkil’s stone quarry near Bantry in West Cork, was built a decade ago, with no expense spared, notes selling agent Joe Organ.

He points to features like six solar panels, air to water thermal heating system, underfloor heating, Futura windows, high insulation standards — and, a whopper of a wood-burning stove, all 18 kilowatts of it, in the double height living area with mezzanine. (Query: how does Santa cope with stoves?)