Hardware shop for sale in Allihies, one of Ireland's most colourful villages doesn't sell paint....

It sells 'everything, from a needle to an anchor' but seems to be missing a brush with the blindingly obvious...

Wed, 05 Jul, 2023 - 18:00

Property Editor Tommy Barker reports

THE chance to live your most colourful life, as a business selling paint and everything else, from a needle to an anchor, has cropped up in one of Ireland’s most colourful villages, Allihies, with the sale of a long-established hardware business, shop, and guesthouse.

Cap that: A scene from the 1976 film Purple Taxi, shot in Eyries and Allihies. Fred Astaire is by the purple taxi, with a cap

Allihies, along with neighbour Eyeries on the Beara Peninsula, is known internationally for the vibrant and bold colour choices of their homes and shops, and the location even starred in a 1970s French movie Purple Taxi, with Fred Astaire, Charlotte Rampling, and Peter Ustinov, and later, in the filming of Deirdre Purcell’s Falling for a Dancer.

Earth tones: Liam Cunningham as Mossie, Elisabeth Dermot Walsh as Elizabeth, and Dermot Crowley as Neeley in the BBC-1's Falling For A Dancer.

Apart from the peninsula’s natural beauty on the Wild Atlantic Way, the dazzling range of hues on homes up hills and down dells is one of the unique selling points of the twin villages, beloved by tourists and artists.

But unexpectedly, “paint is the only thing I don’t sell”, admits John Terry O’Sullivan, the third generation of his family to trade in the scenery-blessed and colour-blasted Allihies.

After 50 years in the business, with an extension built in the 1990s with the vibrant colours chosen by an interior designer, Mr O’Sullivan has decided to sell on his Day Today shop, Seaview nine-bed B&B, four-bed home, fuel sales and hardware business.

The father of five — well-known All-Ireland-winning footballer Áine Terry O’Sullivan is one of the family — says the next generation isn’t interested in taking up the reins, hence the decision to sell.

He recalls the filming of Purple Taxi in the 1970s in Eyeries, where Fred Astaire played the local doctor and the of a mauve taxi, and says Allihies’ and Eyeries’s embrace of asserted colours is possibly “down to the arrival of some very well-known artists who came to live here in the 1960s and 1970s”.

Pretty as a painting: Allihies is a colourful gem in West Cork

The unexpected revelation of this clear gap in the market is, surely, a chance for new owners to put their own colourful stamp on a well-run and thriving business with a trio of income strands.

Might setting up a rainbow-like Beara brand and paint colour chart be the next source of greenbacks for a canny buyer?

The asking price for the property mix — freshly presented with facades painted in an assertive purple/mauve, along with a mix of yellows and greens — isn’t officially disclosed but is thought to be in excess of €650,000, and that’s for 10,000sq ft of property (5,400sq ft B&B, and 4,000sq ft retail) all on 0.45 acres with yard and hardware store.

Dining groom at O'Sullivans nine-bed B&B

“It wouldn’t buy you a house in Cork City,” observes JJ O’Sullivan, a long-established Beara local estate agent who says the businesses trade very well, with strong income, selling everything in the shop and adjoining hardware (bar paint), “from a needle to an anchor”, with a pristine B&B, all with an excellent reputation. He has already done several viewings.

Auctioneer Andy Donoghue of Hodnett Forde, acting jointly, says there’s already been a surge of interest and from a colourful cross-section. “There’s local inquiries, and even a mix of non-nationals, including French. The area is so beautiful, and there’s a mix that includes those who want to ‘put the brakes’ on existing jobs and make a lifestyle change.”