House of the week: Cobh, Cork Harbour €635,000

Next Saturday will, seemingly, see half of Cork harbour’s aficionados pass the graceful, bay-windowed facade of Cobh’s big and well-berthed Victorian home Seafield, though they might be too red-faced, and raw-of-fist and claw, to appreciate its finery: it’s the day of the Ocean to City rowing spectacle.

Modelled on London’s Great River Race, Cork’s An Rás Mór enters its 12th year, growing with each event and really hitting its stride and stroke as hundreds of hardy rowers and paddlers compete along a selection of routes, from 28km-long at harbour mouth, to a ‘mere’ 13km.

For occupants of a Cobh home like Seafield on the exquisite Lower Road, tantalisingly close to the water’s edge, it really is all about the sea, in the very midst of Cork’s harbour and its history.