Ursulines’ last link to Blackrock sells for €4m, 20 years after Order's last €13m disposal

Developers Lyonshall reprise original €13m 2002 purchase with final piece of valuable suburban Cork landbank which they had  subsequently sold on for c €30m  

Cork's Ballsbridge? Convent Road site Blackrock Cork Ursuline Order just sold by Savills for c €4 million, or €1.3m an acre. It follows a 2002 deal to Lyonshall for €13m

After a 20-year sales gap, and a lengthy 200-year history, a just-concluded c €4m land sale ends a religious order’s residential links with Cork city’s Blackrock.

The Ursuline Order has just sold a three-acre suburban site and their purpose-built 16-bed home in the centre of suburban Blackrock village to Kieran and Claire Coughlan of property development firm Lyonshall.

The couple, via their very active and diverse company Lyonshall, previously had bought the Order’s period convent and former school building back in 2002 for €13m for development.

Lyonshall subsequently resold the 32-acre Ursuline Convent property and 1720-built mansion which the Ursuline Order had moved to in 1820 for close to €30m, and it’s now home to many hundreds of units, most recently apartments, after several more chapters and changes of hands post-crash including Pierce Construction, Firestone Developments, Merrion Property Group and most recently, Glenveagh Properties.

Convent Gardens, Eden, Blackrock, built by Glenveagh Properties.

The 1720s-built Blackrock House is now home to 27 luxury apartments, having previously been a convent and school of the Ursuline Sisters, and a private residence before that.

Lyonshall has once more emerged victorious for a second bite of the cherry at the Ursuline Order’s Blackrock heartland after a competitive bidding process via agents Savills on a final 3.26-acre piece of the Ursuline Order’s valuable landholding.

That site contains a 16-bed/15 en suite single-story 8,700 sq ft home built for the Order in the early 2000s when it moved out of the 300-year old convent building, originally known as Blackrock House.

It’s set in what has become Cork city residential ‘suburb of choice,’ and after a multi-million euro civic realm investment by the pier and Marina has reinvigorated the one-time sleepy fishing community on the Lee.

The just-sold three-acre site, off Blackrock’s Convent Road, went to market in September 2021 with agents James O’Donovan and Peter O’Meara of Savills with a €4m+ price guide, and has just been sold for €3.94m to Lyonshall.

Expressing delight at securing another, final part of the Ursuline’s landbank in Blackrock, director Kieran Coughlan said they’d now “look at all options for it, and take a long-term view” and compared it to Dublin’s Ballsbridge in terms of residential appeal.

He said it would be ideal for step-down or trade-down housing in a very secure setting: traders down already featured in the sale of 27 high-end apartments in the 1720-built merchant mansion/former Ursuline convent and school when completed a few years ago by the Dublin-based Merrion Group.

General view of the Eden apartment and townhouse complex in Blackrock, Cork.

Lyonshall is now set to examine development options with its original Eden masterplan architects O’Mahony Pike (OMP) and the three acres could possibly take between 60 and 80 units, he suggested.

While Lyonshall has very successfully delivered trade-down schemes, such as the award-winning 30-unit Arus Mhuire scheme with Cork City Council/Clancy Construction and OMP architects at Arús Mhuire on the Skehard Road and has another site on the South Douglas Road, this Blackrock site may more likely be pitched at private buyers/occupiers, Mr Coughlan suggested.

When launching the sale in September, James O’Donovan of Savills described this walled three-acre enclave as “a prime development site in one of Cork’s most desirable and sought-after residential addresses”. 

Aerial view of development from 2008 on the Ursuline Convent site,  Blackrock/Skehard Road. Picture: Denis Scannell

Provincial of the Ursuline Order in Ireland Wales and Kenya Sr Anne Harte Barry said their Blackrock house was “no longer suitable to our needs. We are happy to say that our sisters will remain in Cork in new settings".

It’s understood that small, private individual homes for a small number of sisters will replace this 2000s built house in the midst of the three-acre site.

“While this marks the end of an era for the Ursulines in Cork it is the beginning of a new journey for the Community, who will be following in Angela’s footsteps carrying forward their mission from their individual homes,” said the Order’s provincial in a statement, adding that “the proceeds of the sale will be used to care for our sisters and for on-going support for our Ursuline ministries and missions.”

“We have been blessed by so many people over our 250 years in Cork — our valued, committed and incredibly caring staff, our education partners, our pupils past and present, our Ursuline companions, bishops of the diocese and the chaplains, the local parish, and many friends and collaborators. We trust this wonderful support will continue.” 

Details: Savills 021-4271371