Clifftop home is well above par for the course on the Old Head of Kinsale

Golf, sail and abseil at clifftop home called Oceanside, 300' directly above sea level

Oceanside does what is says on the tin - the sea is far, far away down at its feet

YOU wouldn’t want to suffer from vertigo when checking the boundaries of this Old Head of Kinsale home called Oceanside — in fact, Clifftop would be a far more accurate name for its dizzyingly beautiful setting, estimated to be some 300’ directly above sea level.

Precipitously perched at the top edge of a lofty sandstone cliff on the long run from Kinsale out to the Old Head of Kinsale headland, it’s almost within a golf drive of the dramatically-sited and world-renowned golf course.

Old Head of Kinsale's golf course is just a long golf drive away from Oceanside

Guiding at €825,000, Oceanside is in a Kinsale district townland called Ballymackean, en route to the narrowing isthmus stretch where the golf course’s private lands begin, by an old defensive tower.

Oceanside is a fine, massively extended and seriously upgraded 1960s bungalow, redone and redone again since the 1990s, but which will always play second fiddle to its location. It’s a seaside spot where seagulls nest, sport and wheel around and it’s also a spot where experienced rock climbers and abseilers come to practice cliff-clambering skills.

Walkers come out this way too, on a six-kilometre loop walk, and there are beaches for swimming, surfing, stand-up paddleboarding and angling at Garrylucas and Garretstown.

And, then, once more, there’s also the Old Head Golf Course, played by nearly all of the world’s top pros at this stage, and which — even if you’re ‘anti’ the strict privacy policy and have supported the protest picnics down the years — is worth many millions of euros each year to the Kinsale hospitality sector.

The ‘bounce’ from the calibre of wealth that finds its way here (often by helicopter) has also translated into raised property values, especially in the Kinsale market’s upper echelons.

The selling agent for Oceanside, Ron Kruger of Kinsale-based Engel & Volkers, is in no doubt as to the spin-offs golf brings to Kinsale, and to its property market. A week or two into the sales campaign on this up-market 2,260 sq ft property, he says he’s already getting inquiries from Ireland, the US, and from Asia/the Far East.

Online viewers are taken by the photos and video (taken here by professional photographer Jakub Walutek, for the house’s owner who also is a keen amateur photographer) he says, ever before they get to set foot on its half-acre, or walk through the well-presented and luxurious home.

Having also been involved in the sale of the €5.5m Horse Island further down the Co Cork coastline in Roaringwater Bay, and which sold after competitive bidding from two parties, one European the other Asian neither of whom stepped on the island before chasing after it, E&V’s Mr Kruger is fairly confident someone will swoop on this pretty specially-sited home with bragging rights too.

The current owners have been here since the 1990s, and have done improvements and add-ons in a steady fashion: “it has evolved from an original home build in the 1960s to what it is now,” Mr Kruger says of this B3-BER-rated home with its stupendous views, adding “it’s bright, and beautifully presented, it offers a wealth of space internally and externally and has been immaculately maintained by its current owners.”

Oceanside is largely single storey, but has a mezzanine office at the back end of its en suite master bedroom which has its own private sun lounge in front for ocean vistas, with lofted ceilings and banks of Veluxes. Apart from the main accommodation mix (the kitchen’s particularly good too) there’s a garage and a detached studio to the site, with a flat roof used as a further viewing terrace.
VERDICT: Chances of ever again getting permission to build in a Kinsale setting like this, where seagulls dare to land? Steeper than the cliff on its boundary.

Old Head of Kinsale, Cork

€825,000

Size: 210 sq m (2,260 sq ft)

Bedrooms: 4

Bathrooms: 3

BER: B3