Fair dues to Fairview: West Cork home has timepiece Castletownshend village in its sights

Fairview undersells its views and setting

Sublime setting in Cashtlehaven harbour for Fairview. Auctioneer Michael McKenna seeks offers at €880,000

Reen, Union Hall, West Cork
€880,000
Size	240 sq m (2,550 sq ft)
Bedrooms	5
Bathrooms	4
BER	C2

FAIRVIEW undersells itself, at least in the modesty of its name.

The views out from this one-off- 1990s coastal dormer home could and should hold your gaze day-in, day-out, in all weathers, fair or fowl, across all seasons and down years: little wonder the owner has a telescope trained out one of his upstairs windows, to watch the world go by.

Castletownshend and Reen: Aerial image 2008 Denis Scannell

In some respects, little changes over the bay

Fairview,  indeed

from Fairview, set as it is in Reen, West Cork, with the glorious sight of Castletownshend village on a steep hill dropping down to the sea directly in its line of sight: in fact, the house is set at an angle to the quiet cul de sac road for just that view.

It hones in on Castletownshend’s pier, Main Street and its Mall, its grand and gentrified townhouses redolent of the vertiginous village’s Anglo Irish heyday, the Townshend family’s castle home right on the water, and the crowning glory, the 200 year old St Barrahane’s C of I church with its Harry Clarke stained glass windows, and its evocative graveyard.

Spitting distance: Fairview is by the pier and spit at Reen

Fairview? It’s better than that, because you also get the waters of Castlehaven Harbour to look out along, to the rocky outcrops of Flea Island and Horse Island, all the indents and the idea you never quite know what boat is going to arrive or when, ferrying whoever, from wherever.

Fishers and sailors come and go, boat charters from the shingle spit known as The League ferry families out to go whale watching, whilst the Kennedy family’s Atlantic Sea Kayaking has been taking solo paddlers all around the West Cork and Lough Hyne beauty spots for decades past by now from a base on the spit.

Despite all this water-borne wonderment, Reen itself is traditionally a quiet spot, a veritable backwater if you will, as it’s a sort of a jutting out peninsular cul de sac a few miles out of Union Hall, a half an hour or so’s jaunt to Skibbereen in one direction or Clonakilty/Rosscarbery in the other.

It has coves and bays galore , but no big sandy beaches, and doesn’t have a shop or a pub or another magnetic attraction, bar the arrival since covid times of a converted horsebox doing baking and coffees by The League and Reen pier.

Reen’s charms were spotted decades by UK-born Terry Webber, who built Fairview for himself in the early 1990s, and he’s lived here ever since.

Now, however, it’s time after more than 30 years enjoyment to go back to Blighty, to family, and he has put Fairview up for sale with agent Michael McKenna who knows the area and the coastline very well.

He listed it in mid-January and it’s only now getting ready for first viewings and he expects it to get really active as the spring days lengthen, reckoning it will be bought by a lover of the sea and boats and natural beauty, in a slightly under the radar setting.

He guides the quite substantial size five bed dormer home of some 2,500 sq ft at €880,000, so it’s already in a slightly premium price league for West Cork, but the area exerts its own strong pull.

Another modern home a few hundred yards out the road, Windswept Cottage, sold in 2024 for a recorded €1.08 m (it also featured here) and Blind Harbour House sold in 2022 sold in 2022 for €1.2m, both of them on or above the water. Only slightly set back from the shoreline, Reen Castle with an upgraded substantial farmhouse sold for a recorded €1.775m a year ago, possibly more as there was some extra acreage with it.

Beach nearby at Reen South. Pic Denis Scannell

Fairview is at least more modestly priced by comparison at its €880k, and comes with options for two ground floor bedrooms, three more bedrooms upstairs, plus four bathrooms, with a large, open and high-ceilinged airy kitchen/living room, next to a gable end sun room, glazed on three sides with overhead Veluxes and water and harbour views.

It also has a detached block-built garage, with windows on three sides, and very well maintained grounds of c one third of an acre.

VERDICT: What a location, low-key but lovely.