Putting the 'bella' in €275k Bantry rural buy called Inisbella

Owners worked wonders with semi-derelict cottage after buying it two decades back

Inisbella is outstanding in its field

Dromore, Bantry, West Cork
€275,000
Size	186 sq m (2,004 sq ft)
Bedrooms	3/4
Bathrooms	3
BER	C1

COLOURFUL Inisbella, near Bantry in West Cork, has had a cherished and chequered time, from days of yore when it was a tiny school, to occupation by two elderly brothers who had a bigger house up the hills, and brief ownership by a French woman who gave it its name.

Good grounds!

And then, in 2002, it all got reborn, upgraded, stamped with personality and had a garden planted by a man who knew what he was doing, with a professional background in botany, who worked in horticulture, and who excelled in woodwork.

Inisbella was bought over 20 years ago by Limerick natives Bill Lynch, from Feenagh, and his wife Nora, originally a Lordan from Dromcollogher — “You’d better mention that, they’d be very upset and there are a lot of them there!” she laughs.

Inisbella before

Outgoing and able Nora Lynch speaks on the phone as she prepares to pack up the place she has called home for the best part of two decades, between hanging up the washing on an Easter Bank Holiday weekend, only slightly discommoded by the fact she’s just had a second knee replaced, and is just a bit incapacitated as a result.

She’s now selling scenically-set Inisbella in Bantry’s Dromore district to move back to the Slip part of Bantry town — whence she and husband Bill, who taught horticulture in Bantry (he’d also trained at the Botanic Gardens in Glasnevin) — had moved from in the early 2000s for a quieter, more rustic pace of life and with plans for growing bedding plants for income.

Colourful Inisbella 

The couple had worked in the UK and in Ireland in places like Bunratty before fetching up in Bantry town, then moving out to the sticks to do up a bit of a wreck of a house.

Well, wreck no more. Between them and some English builders living locally who they drafted in, they reimagined the roadside cottage into a two-storey home of just over 2,000 sq ft, with up to four bedrooms and, very cleverly, with a comfortable first-floor living room “from where we could see the sun go down on Bantry Bay,” Nora all but sings.

The triple-aspect first-floor living room has high, slightly vaulted ceilings and an open fireplace, and measures about 21’ by 18’, sort of the same size as the ground floor main kitchen/living/dining room directly underneath is, and next to it is the first floor main bedroom, with en suite.

The auld triangle?

Open-tread wood stairs link the levels and, off the ground-floor open kitchen/living are twobedrooms, each up a few internal steps and each with privatebathrooms (one en suite is in the original porch to the front) and there’s a connecting long hall, with tiled floor and bursting with green house plants, linking to a side second reception rooms, further bedrooms/study and a utility room.

Kitchen

The home is full of personality and art: Nora paints and writes stories, and grandchildren’s
musical instruments can be seen about the place, and her handiwork is evident too in places such as in the plasterwork on the cornflour-blue chimney breast around the main living area’s stove. When it was being plastered, she got a piece of soft foam and gave it her own assertive treatment in swirls and curves.

Unabashed colours contrast with calmer shades too though, and the main living area has exposed ceiling joists, some displaying collection of old jugs, with a few clothes airing ‘Sheila Maids’ up there too for good measure.

There’s a solid fuel stove, open fireplace in the room above, oil central heading (the BER’s a decent-enough C1) plus solar panels for water heating, and good broadband also.

Sit out spots aplenty

Outside there’s a raised deck overlooking the landscaped and well-planted gardens, which include lots of camellias and other shrubs, as well as a shed, and a frame for polytunnel, while an ever larger tunnel for Bill’s bedding plants was given to a neighbour, following Bill’s death some years ago.

Inisbella is on a quiet backroad ten minutes from Bantry

Inisbella isn’t isolated (there’s another larger, modern home alongside in fact) and the mature Coillte forest to its rear is due for harvesting soon, it’s understood, so the vista will open up further once that’s accomplished. There are walks locally, glamping and pony trekking, with small lakes at Bofinne on the road back to Bantry, and at Kealanine, towards Drimoleague.

Nora Lynch is selling to move to an easier-maintained property back in Bantry town where she’s a well-known member of the local Lions Club.

First floor living room has views towards Bantry Bay

She recently got involved in setting up the Bridge Street Community Cafe, near the iconic library building in the town, which is also a drop-in support service for ‘learning and laughter,’ supported by Cork Mental Health Foundation, and for which Nora raised thousands of euro in its first year via a bed push (eh, mind those knees?)

Selling agent now is Mark Kelly of Hodnett Forde, who guides the very well-kept and much-loved home by the Bantry line and its two thirds of an acre of mature grounds at €275,000, saying it was “completely transformed, extended and refurbished in 2002,” and is convenient to Bantry town (10 minutes), a similar distance to Drimoleague, five minutes from a national school, and an hour from Cork city.

VERDICT: Much evidence of green fingers and care.