Harmonious living at €1.25m Model Farm Road home of harpist Ruth McDonnell
Doirin, 16 Bishopstown Avenue, Cork
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Model Farm Road, Cork |
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€1.25m |
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Size |
183 sq m (1970 sq ft) |
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Bedrooms |
5 |
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Bathrooms |
3 |
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BER |
D2 |
LIFE at Doirín revolved around family and music and much of it played out in the garden.
A tree was planted to mark each newborn’s arrival: Oak, Horse Chestnut, Ash. A choir lined out among hardy perennials to serenade a centenarian grandmother. There was a nice rhythm to life at Doirín, which, though close to the city, seemed more rooted in countryside.
It was in this large, warm and vibrant home at 16 Bishopstown Avenue, off Model Farm Road, that accomplished harpist Ruth McDonnell reared her family, in tandem with a busy but rewarding 32-year career as UCC’s Head of Media and PR.
“We’ve had 30 years in this house and we have very happy memories. The kids all grew up here and my mother lived with us for 10 years and we got to celebrate her 100th birthday in the garden. It was a lovely house to rear a family in,” Ruth says.
Doirín was built in 1938 and its roots can be traced to a Patrick O’Brien, an engineer born in the Himalayas to intrepid Irish parents, and his Armenian wife, Marie Constant, who met while working in Baghdad and later returned to Cork. The couple first built Dún Pádraig, across the road from Doirín on Bishopstown Avenue on 0.3 acres (it sold last year for €1.25m) using contractors, before embarking on a house building programme themselves. They produced a number of quality homes on both the Avenue and close by on The Ridgeway, with family members benefiting in some instances. A relation recalled that “they were each given two houses, one to live in, and one to live off.” An O’Brien family member was the original owner of a house called Smallacre, next door to Dún Pádraig, which also changed hands last year. Having come to market for €1.55m (it’s on half an acre), it sold in October for €1.68m.
Signs are that house hunters keen on a Bishopstown Avenue/Model Farm Road home can rule themselves out unless they’re armed with upwards of a million quid. None of the last three houses sold on the Avenue went for anything less — in 2021, Mount Nephin, on a third of an acre, sold for €1.28m.
The site Doirín is on is 0.2 acres, lovingly tended to by Ruth’s husband, who turned his attention to rewilding following retirement.
The result is a more productive garden (“We had lovely salads and veg last summer”, Ruth says) and land more in tune with the natural ecosystem.
The effect has been startling, with a noticeable improvement in biodiversity and the return of many insects. The colours are magnificent too, particularly during the summer months, says Ruth, with so much in bloom.
The garden has been the fragrant backdrop to many’s the birthday celebration and harp recital, including during covid, when Ruth entertained the neighbours.
The neighbours on Bishopstown Avenue are wonderful, she says, citing their support for a Ukranian mother and son whom Ruth took under her wing at Doirín for a year-and-a-half.
She minded her mother for a decade in the warm embrace of Doirín too, building on a downstairs en suite bedroom (scope for future owners to host an au pair?) with French doors to the rear patio.
For her mother’s 100th birthday, during a brief respite from covid lockdowns, she organised for a choir to sing for her in the garden. Her mother, who remained “bright and sharp to the end” passed away three years ago, having lived a year-and-a-bit beyond the century.
Ruth’s three kids are all grow and living abroad, one daughter as far away as Auckland, New Zealand, who took her hurley with her, as a means of signalling membership of the Irish community.
“We like Irish culture in this house and the three of them went to the local Gaelscoil, Gaelscoil Uí Riada in Bishopstown. Two of them went onto secondary school at Coláiste Choilm in Ballincollig and one went to Mount Mercy girls secondary school,” Ruth says. They were blessed, she adds, with a choice of good schools in the neighbourhood, which also included St Catherine’s National School, a short stroll away, and Coláiste an Spioraid Naoimh boys secondary school. Sports facilities abound too.
Proximity to UCC was a godsend, given Ruth’s career. For any medics who might be interested in Doirín, the back door of the CUH campus is down the road — in fact medics lived at 16 Bishopstown Avenue prior to Ruth’s arrival, when the house was called Summerhill.
Summerhill wasn’t a bad name for No 16 either, because it does get a lot of sunlight, particularly at the south and west facing rear.
Ruth added a sunroom over the years, with veluxes in the vaulted ceiling, and glazing on three sides, including more French doors to the patio.
Double doors open from the sunroom into the sitting room which in turn opens into the front drawing room, creating a great flow of space down the centre of the house.
The drawing room doubled as a music room, hosting a piano and a couple of Ruth’s harps, and when all the doors between the rooms were open, it must have been a terrific entertainment space.
Ruth has had a long career as a harpist, and it took her to many interesting places, from South Korea, to Bunratty Castle. She has fond memories too of the late Professor Aloys Fleishman, Professor of Music at UCC, and conductor of the orchestra that played in the Opera House for the Irish National Ballet in the days of Joan Denise Moriarty.
“I remember he organised a concert harp for me when we played for the ballet in the ‘80s,” she says.
As the curtain falls on her time in Doirín — it’s too large for them now, she says — Sam Kingston Snr of Casey & Kingston has been drafted in. He brings it to market with a guide price of €1.25m and describes it as a “wonderful, two storey, five bedroom, detached house, with a superb west-facing, well-stocked rear garden”.
He mentions that it comes with a study too, and a utility, which a garage made way for, along with a downstairs bathroom.
Mr Kingston predicts very keen interest in Doirín, from traders-up in the main, including re-locators familiar with the best of Cork City’s western suburbs.
Expect the usual demographic of well-heeled professionals looking to settle in a prime location. Expect also plenty of competitive bidding, a familiar tune on Model Farm Road
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