Where love doves dare? Dripsey house with Hozier video links worth more than 'The Mention'

Comedian Colm O'Regan's Leeside village has random claims to fame, from an ancient  dovecote to a modern gay kiss

Cronody is a calm Leeside backwater setting by  Cork's Dripsey

Dripsey, Lee Valley
€450,000
Size	220 sq m (2,370 sq ft)
Bedrooms	3
Bathrooms	3
BER	C2

COMEDIAN and Irish Examiner columnist Colm O’Regan’s brain must be absolutely fizzing these lockdown weeks and months.

He wrote for this paper prior to Christmas just how excited he still gets when his small, home-village community and native place of Dripsey in Cork’s Lee Valley gets a mention. Oh, almost any sort of mention, anywhere… sort of fame, at a small price or, for €450,000 according the latest local property sale for this listing, at Cronody, Dripsey, set above the lake and right by the early 18th century Cronody dovecote, or pigeon house.

Set at Cronody  in Dripsey, this home  is an easy commute back to the city, with local walks, the Coachford Greenway, with watersports aplenty at  the Inniscarra network.

Funnyman O’Regan still gets that childish flutter whenever Dripsey gets what he dubbed ‘The Mention.’

He recalled the fame attached to Dripsey Woollen Mills, now all spun out after closing in the 1980s, the rug pulled out from the business model.

He mentioned the time brooding hunk actor Gabriel Byrne filmed a risqué romantic triangle scene in a Channel Four movie called Reflections,  shot in Dripsey ..so, no, the name’s not a medical term for, eh, loss of libido.

Earlier, six War of Independence volunteers were executed at Dripsey, for their part in an attempted ambush on British forces. 

A local woman, who blew the whistle on the proposed ambush, was also shot by the IRA as a reprisal: those tragic events were all recalled in the Centenary of the January 1921 Dripsey Ambush just two weeks ago in the Irish Examiner, and a commemorative Seamus Murphy obelisk sculpture has marked the ambush site spot since it was unveiled in 1938.

O’Regan in his homage to Dripsey and its odd ’Mentions’ also referenced with affection the energy of local child, eight-year-old Jacky McCullogh on the November 2020 Level Five Lockdown Late Late Toy Show: the snooker and train-obsessed lad was asked by the show’s host Ryan Tubridy “How are things in Dripsey?” to which the waist-coated and bow-tied boy and replied “Ah, not great. There’s nothing close to us, anything close is closed.” 

Jacky bemoaned not being able to get the snooker tables in the city’s Mardyke for an hour (Cork is 15 miles downriver from Dripsey). On this point, wordly-wise Jacky chimed with Colm O’Regan’s own recall that when he was a boy “there weren’t even that many signposts for Dripsey. Its location was on a need-to-know basis. And not many needed to know.” Ah, but that was back in the day.

While 1.7m viewers heard from Jackie on last year’s most watched Irish TV show just how quiet Dripsey in the Lee Valley is in a pandemic-enforced lockdown, a couple of other local lads have also done well on farther flung shores.

Dripsey kiss? Scene in Hozier's Take me to Church was viewed many hundreds of millions of times, featuring local Emmet O'Riabhaigh, left, and Daniel Coughlan. Cronody's Patrick Sheahan  played the homophobe 

Emmet Ó Riabhaigh and Patrick Sheahan, old Dripsey schoolmates and actors, starred in the Hozier video Take me To Church, which got over 130m hits on Youtube in its first months online, and continued to roll out a few hundred million more eight years later, famed for its gay kiss and, by more elitist Lee Valley cognoscenti, for the shots done by  the Inniscarra dam.

Video's chilling attack scene was filmed by Inniscarra dam

Salvage pine doors and  stained glass feature

Turns out (Dripsey being quite a small place, actually) that this Cronody Dripsey house, built in the latter half of the 1980s, was the family home of the very same Patrick Sheahan, of Hozier video fame (he played possibly the world’s most reviled homophobe in one brutal scene?) and of his sister Laura,  and their parents John and Pauline Sheahan.

Pauline’s from Donegal, and John (who passed away several years ago) was a Mallow native, and he inherited the site,  here with views down to the flooded reservoir lakes of the Lee hydroelectric scheme by a relative, with old farm cottage, and adjacent aesthetically pleasing stone barn.

Good hearth

They couple kept some of the original thick-walled cottage, integrating it into what’s now a 2,300 sq ft very comfortable, warm and well-built dormer home, integrating lots of architectural and ecclesiastical salvage, old brick, timbers, old chapel and convent pine doors, stained glass and more – Take me from Church? before that stellar viewed video’s time.

Helping accountant John with this house design was Pat Owens, owner at the time of Mallow’s Hibernian Hotel among other businesses, and builder was Jim Sullivan of Summerhill Construction.

Gardens were laid out by Brian Cross

Brought in for the garden design for this Cronody family home’s 1.3 acre of fertile gardens was the highly-regarded Brian Cross, who left a firm mark on the array of well-chosen planting, aided no doubt by proximity to Griffin’s Garden Centre, a Dripsey lakeside landmark in its own right, for want of a ‘Mention’ (quieten down there, Colm O’Regan.) Rooting this one-off to earlier centuries was the retention of some of the original stone farm cottage and the lofted barn, which is overlooked by the house gable end and an upstairs study.

Kitchen with views

With family flown the nest, it’s trading downtime for the Sheahans and estate agent Norma Healy of Sherry FitzGerald is selling on their behalf.

She guides the good-sized dormer with warm character, enormous brick fireplace with stove and much-loved hearth, with well-selected salvage materials and fine, panelled stripped pine and stained glass doors at €450,000.

Atmospheric barn has further potential

Ms Healy says it’s an easy commute back to the city, with local walks, the Coachford Greenway, watersports aplenty of the Inniscarra network, proximity to woods and the National Rowing Centre in Farran, and is perfect for those who want to balance a work and family life in a “truly unique property, bursting with charm and character,” and with views to the lake from the kitchen, and from the grounds too, yet with utmost privacy on very mature gardens.

Barn stormer?

She notes that the accompanying stone barn may have potential for upgrade, to residential use (subject to planning) or to hobby/work purpose, and handily, the property has two entrances, hand for times when the Sheahan family have facilitated parking for local historical societies visiting the historical Cronody dovecote (dating to 1716, and used as safe breeding spot for pigeons as a source of food) just a field or two away across the quiet road.

Rear settles into landscaped grounds of 1.3 acres

She adds that the property has been extremely well maintained, by its house proud owners, and has double aspect lounge, living room at the far end, kitchen/diner, guest WC, split staircase, serving the upper floor’s three double bedrooms (one’s en suite), home office, and a study, and most rooms have a warm, southerly aspect to the front, with water views.

Living rooms at either end

The Price Register records 66 Dripsey property sales since 2010, at a vast price range, from under €100,000 to €900,000 for Dripsey Castle and Georgian home, which sold back in 2015 on 110 acres for an all-in price of €2 million.

VERDICT: Did we mention the delights of Dripsey?