Cheap Irish Homes: See how Maggie Molloy transformed her living space
In this room Maggie replaced the fireplace, painted the walls and replaced the wooden floor with a new one: 'Our kitchen is from Ikea and cost just €1600 in total.'
"Build it and they will come," says Maggie Molloy as she paraphrases the words made famous by the 1989 Kevin Costner movie classic.
But she’s not talking about a baseball diamond in a cornfield: Munster-based Maggie is evangelical about breathing new life into rural Ireland.
Maggie, originally from Askamore, near Gorey, Co Wexford, embarked on her odyssey, cruising along highways and byways to uncover previously hidden potential property buys for house hunters, after she started her Instagram account Cheap Irish Houses @cheapirishhouses, four years ago.
She had taken to social media to share how she had found value by buying and renovating her own rural “forever home” in Co Tipperary.
Now 41, she bought her property at the age of 23.
It was Maggie's Instagram account that inspired the RTÉ One television series which she co-presents with building engineer and Property & Home columnist Kieran McCarthy.
“My Instagram account was taking off and I had done an interview with The Business Show on RTÉ’s Radio One, when the producer said: This is a fantastic idea for a property show. But it just wasn’t even on my radar at the time, I had not even thought about it,” she says.
But it did get several TV production companies thinking and they immediately got in touch after the radio programme aired. “I must listen back to find out what I said that was so mesmerising!” says Maggie.
“One of the ideas suggested was for me to do a show about bringing celebrities around, to find holiday homes in the West of Ireland. I said: ‘They already have homes! They don’t need them.'
"I wanted something that helps young people, and even not-so-young people.
"If you’re at the stage where you can buy holiday homes you can find them yourself or pay someone to find them. It didn’t feel right for me.
“The majority of my Instagram followers were people, young and not-so-young buyers, who were really surprised that you could find a house at the prices I was finding them.”
When first hit our screens, it had “a novelty” factor, she says.
“I always said to myself I wanted to convince people that there was a novelty about coming back to live in rural Ireland: Build it and they will come. We had to get young people wanting to live out here,” says Maggie.
What about coaxing mindsets out of Dublin — and out of the commuter belt?
The conversation hurtles decades into the future from — in movie terms.
“Sometimes, it’s like we’re in , with us all living out here in the districts. And it feels like the Government doesn’t care about anywhere except ‘the Capitol’? Maybe it’s just a need for more imaginative thinking, though,” she says.
“I say: bring places back to life; bring things slightly past the Leinster border. And I’m saying that as a Leinster girl.
“Dublin was my city — but once you go past Kilkenny, you’re going to be going to Cork or Limerick. Dublin just doesn’t exist in the minds of people outside of Leinster.
“And the Government doesn’t’ realise this. And these [Cork and Limerick] are massive, functional cities. Once you get to Munster, you realise this.
“I live half an hour outside of Limerick City and it is so much nicer to shop in than Dublin. There are no traffic jams. You need to get out of Leinster to realise that Leinster is not the be-all and end-all.
“I’ve been a Munster girl for 19 years at this stage so I do see it from both sides now.
“There are villages and towns that are empty at the moment. There are houses that are empty. We just need to give people the incentive [to sell and to buy].”
This new series of , starting on RTÉ One on September 1, is all about value and the presenter is on a quest to find Ireland’s most reasonably priced properties, from bungalows to forgotten farmhouses.
Buying a home seems ever farther out of reach in these times and as property prices soar, Maggie and Kieran are determined to find the value to be had “if you look the right places”, she adds.
“As the seasons have gone on I think the house hunters that appear on the show are a lot more open to living in houses that are not done up,” says Maggie.
“I think in season one people were afraid of living in old houses. I would encourage people to come in and look past the clutter. I think young people back then were kind of still unconvinced but this season they are more content with doing less [renovation work]."
This is also probably good news and in the middle of the cost-of-living crisis?
“People are learning more about the houses. I think the stigma of living in an old house is disappearing more,” says Maggie.
“It used to be people felt it was about not having a lot of money; this would have been something that came from previous generations, but it filtered down to us.
"Someone might say, ‘I’m going to see a house, it’s a derelict cottage’ and would be talked out of it by a family who would be worried that it would be all damp, for instance.
“But to our generation, this used to be Granny’s house. And Granny’s house used to be lovely, with apple tarts and boiled sweets in a jar.
“Young people are becoming a lot braver and a lot more inclined to like the houses as they are — not as this ingredient for something they want to turn them into.”
Does Maggie believe buying these properties will be life-savers for existing communities and more sustainable long-term when it comes to services?
“I see the number of derelict houses and people renting them and buying them. It is just so nice. Our whole community has come back to life so much.
"A couple got in touch with me about a little house across the valley. They wanted to bid on it so they were wondering if I could keep it off Instagram [Maggie’s Cheap Irish Houses Instagram page].
“Now, every time I see it, I think: ‘That couple got that house, that is another house with a family and children living in the community.
"We just need that enthusiasm. The people will come, and then the services will follow.”
Maggie is keen to see rural communities coming back to life with “little coffee shops, schools, re-opened post offices”.
She also likes to show the potential of what can be done once you’ve bought that property, on her Instagram page.
“I didn’t spend a lot on my house and everyone loves my house. Not everyone guts the place or gets a contractor, some just potter away and do very little.”
Maggie turned her parlour or “the big room” into a kitchen. “I did this only five years ago. There were many things I didn’t take out and that I didn’t change," she says.
“People realise it’s ok to do a little, and not to spend a massive amount of money when I say: Well, this is my house.
“In rural Ireland, people would do bits of everything. My dad’s a carpenter but has so much knowledge in his head, and there are so many people like that.
“My husband was a plumber before the recession and he’s now a graphic designer.
“I will turn my hand to anything — I think I’m just not afraid to do stuff wrong!
“I think the people that renovated and worked on these houses in the last 100 years, they were never professionals they were just people in the community.“
Maggie has also started filming for a new series, focusing on finding affordable properties abroad. “It’s aimed at people who want to work remotely and who have thought of taking advantage of lower property prices around Europe,” she says.
“When you see good value, you just want to share it with people."
- airs from Thursday, September 1, at 7pm on RTÉ One
- Instagram: @cheapirishhouses; website CheapIrishHouses
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