Half of a West Cork headland and a derelict farmhouse near Glandore can be yours for €1m

House, buildings, and 32 acre farm beside a beach and public pier at Tralong at a spot called Brulea: Creme Brulea, anyone?

A head of the posse: overseas interest expected for half a headland, 32 acres farm by Tralong Bay near Glandore

Sat, 03 Jun, 2023 - 18:02

Property Editor Tommy Barker reports

Tralong Bay, West Cork
€1.1 million
Size	149 sq m (1,600 sq ft)
Bedrooms	3
Bathrooms	1
BER	G

THERE’S such a thing as ‘kind land,’ and this quintessentially beautiful and untouched West Cork small headland homestead, by a beach and slipway inside Glandore Bay, seems to embody it.

Taking half of a headland at the western side of the mouth of Tralong Bay (‘beach of the ships’) at a townland called Brulea, this is a compact land holding with derelict but still-roofed main house and numerous stone outbuildings and barn that is, most likely, all combined worth multiples of its basic land or farm value, thanks to the setting.

Just a few miles east of Glandore, and just to the west of Mill Cove by Rosscarbery, with extensive shoreline frontage, the elevated land is all in one block with two access lanes, with perfect wildflower ditches and stone walls.

Work is needed to house and old stone buildings

And, from nearly every point, there’s a view of water, either the beach, the tidal inlet, or the facing headland on the other side of the foot-shaped bay where there’s a modern mansion tucked away. In contrast, glimpsed over the beach too is a now-immaculate 1700s period home rescued as a family home over a decade ago by a couple of architects as their family home.

Further to the north, perhaps two miles away Drumbeg Stone Circle can be glimpsed on this ancient landscape: this coastal farm has, in fact, its own stone mound, unmarked, in a high field, with thrusting angular peak.

On this property’s own headland extremity are views to Galley Head lighthouse five miles to the east, as the gull flies, or as the whales pass by each summer. Brulea’s quite the perfect spot off the Wild Atlantic Way’s beaten track for a telescope for private viewings of marine life, bird life or shipping, yachting and fishing.

It’s all up for sale now, a pretty rare offer and prime-set for gentle renewal as a private retreat and hideaway from the world — organic rewilding project, anyone?

Its derelict three-bed house seems in quite good structural order and was lived in up until a decade or two ago, with two high-ceilinged first floor bedrooms plus large landing/bedroom, and has seemingly older stone outbuildings fringing it, with a native woodland sheltering the house from the worst of winter westerly winds.

There are remnants of a cottage flower garden on the two-storey south/western façade, with a sloping roofline on the single story approach by a cluster of outbuildings, functioning old wrought iron gates, and the steel barn and trees on the scooped out site are dotted with bird nesting boxes.

The land slopes down to the shoreline via rough paddocks beyond a public slipway, with glimpses of activity on the water (a yacht arrived as the Irish Examiner visited last sunny weekend, having safely navigated the rocks at Tralong’s Bay’s mouth) and rises above to several sloping rough paddocks that don’t seem to have had feeds of nitrogen for years, allowing for a diversity of grasses and wildflowers. It’s a heart-warming step back in time to non-intensive agriculture.

The future? It’s got a €1.1m AMV quoted by agent Sean Carmody of Charles P McCarthy auctioneers in Skibbereen: the same agency sold the Tralong Bay facing headland property on 43 acres with half-built ‘Tiger Times’ 4,500 sq ft MacMansion back in 2013 at an auction attend by 22, but with just one bidder, from the US who scooped it up for €300,000.

We wrote at the time that there had been ex-pat “interested parties from Saudi Arabia, Europe and America. The buyer is said to be a businessman in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, who flew in specially having seen the property online. Obviously, the parlous state of the Irish property market wasn’t lost to a buyer who, in fairness, has nabbed one of the most lovely pieces of west Cork coastline for a steal.”

Glandore harbour's a bit over the headland....

Now, this other half of the headland is up for the taking. Ex-pat and overseas interest is a given here at time-capsule Brulea but you’ll pay more for it now with the current international premium on coastal properties, seen at full-strength in West Cork since the global pandemic.

VERDICT: Creme Brulea? Perfect for an organic lifestyle for those with empathy for the old and and the (in)valuable; a beautiful, unspoiled parcel of land, for those with the funds to bring the enclave back to a gentle 21st Century life.