Farm with a beach to woo buyer from overseas

THE land’s not great, the house needs work, the sheds have seen better days, nonetheless, there’s a €745,000 price guide on this Foilnamuck, Ballydehob traditional three-bed farmhouse, in West Cork.

Why so? Well there is some 26 acres of land, but more important than quality and even quantity, is the setting: it’s coastal with hundred of metres of waterline frontage, its own beach (private, that is from the high tide mark up, and has privacy and outbuildings with scope to beat the band.

The setting is at the end of a cul de sac, in the Foilnamuck townland, with views towards actor Jeremy Irons’ peach-tinted castle over the waters of Roaringwater Bay Kilcoe, and it’s set a few miles along country boreens from Ballydehob, with cross-country byways to Rossbrin and Schull, about 20 kms west of Skibbereen.

Joint selling agents are Ray O’Neill of Sherry FitzGerald and Kieran O’Gorman, who admit the property needs substantial renovation but expect an overseas buyer.

Continental Europeans have, traditionally, been to the fore in such coastal and rugged land sales previously, even if outbid by native Irish, often during the Celtic Tiger times. How now lies the bidding lust for West Cork land, a beach, and the sea?

VERDICT: You’ll pay for such privacy and pleasures.