No Covid-19 blocks  during Donncha O'Callaghan's Cork €675k family home sale

Pandemic virus didn't impact rugby star's house sale - it went viral with 300,000 online hits

Jumping for joy:  Donncha and Jenny O'Callaghan have successfully sold their family home on Cork's Boreenmanna Road despite Covid-19 restrictions, for the full €675,000 asking price via agent Jeremy Murphy & Associates.

COVID-19 hasn’t stood in the way of 6’6” rugby star and Ireland’s Fittest Family coach Donncha O’Callaghan – he has just successfully sold his Cork family home, during pandemic era times, for the full, high ball €675,000 price it was pitched at just four fevered months ago.

The genial giant, now also a broadcaster/co-presenter on RTÉ with Game On, and his wife Jenny put their family home of the past five years at 4 Woodbury, on the city’s suburban Boreenmanna Road, up for grabs at the start of July as the country emerged from the first Coronavirus lockdown.

Ownership of the O’Callaghan clan’s home passed hands this Monday, during a second, Stage Five lockdown after a surgically neat sale process.

Safe pass: Donncha O'Callaghan with auctioneer Jeremy Murph outside 4 Woodberry Boreenmanna Road, Cork. pic; Larry Cummins

The contemporary five-bed, 2,700 sq ft house, with feature sunken family playroom pit under a pitched zinc roof, got 20 parties through it to view after it got a splash in the Irish Examiner’s Property & Home supplement on July 4 -  American Independence Day -  and got over 300,000 online views that launch weekend.

Turns out the buyers of No 4 work for a US multinational, and had just recently relocated to Cork for their careers, arriving here with a young family in tow, albeit not as many as the O’Callaghan brood of four Sophie, Anna, Robyn, and Jake.

Game of throw-ins: the O'Callaghan clan have said goodbye to their family home, with its feature sunken seating pit easily able to accommodate a 6'6" dad and lively brood.

The three-storey home had a knock-out open plan  1,250 sq ft rear kitchen/family/dining den with seating pit and fold-back windows to the patio and small garden. Sportingly, it's near Cork Constitution rugby grounds, the GAA’s Páirc Ui Rinn, public parks, tennis club and swimming pool.

“The buyers fell for it immediately. As soon as they got as far as the kitchen family room, they determined right there and then that they wanted it. The deal was agreed with a few days, and has now closed,” says satisfied selling agent Jeremy Murphy, whose firm Jeremy Murphy & Associates had previously also sold for Jenny O’Callaghan’s family (the Harts) nearby.

Scrum-ptious: the family adapted the rear of their family home via Rockforest architect Jerry O'Connor.

The sale result is seen as a particularly strong one for the roadside location (the ‘Sold’ signs have just gone up with a thud,) as some eyebrows were raised at the €675,000 asking price, but clearly, it paid well-judged dividends for the vendors and for agent Jeremy Murphy. Selling within months, during a pandemic too, is every bit as impressive. Game over.

In July, the O’Callaghan family revealed they were relocating to the Rochestown Road, taking over the Hart family mid-1900s home from Jenny’s parents Paul and Gillian and which is now being upgraded.

Hats off: a selection of O'Callaghan's rugby caps are packed and headed off to their new home.

Importantly for a games-mad family, their new home is on far larger gardens, with retired Munster, Ireland and Worcester Warriors player (and UNICEF ambassador) Donncha O’Callaghan saying “we wouldn’t be moving only because of this great chance.”

The couple’s daughters will remain at local Ballinlough school Our Lady of Lourdes, while son Jake has just started at St Anthony’s NS. Parents Donncha and Jenny O’Callaghan reckon the schools are within a walk of their new home on the far side of Douglas ….keeping them up there as contenders for Ireland’s Fittest Young Family.