We've been around the world - but, Google brought us to Kinsale

South African family came to the Cork coast and Kinsale for lifestyle, and freedom for their children

Black Quay House is up the river Bandon from Kinsale 

Hollyhill, Dunderrow. Kinsale
€1.15 million
Size	284 sq M (3,000 sq ft)
Bedrooms	5
Bathrooms	4
BER	B2

FUNNY how the world works, and turns, isn't it?

A holiday in Spain seven years ago prompted a young family living in South Africa to relocate to Cork — and more precisely to Kinsale — having lived in eight homes, on three continents, since they married in 2001.

Well, the freedom experienced in Spain by the wife, on that 2018 holiday with her own mother, prompted her to ruefully say to her husband, on her return to their South African city home, “I loved seeing the children in Spain having so much freedom; our kids will never know that.”

Rest easy

That started a discussion about emigration, and within seven weeks the couple and their two children (then 9 and 11), plus a few bags of belongings, fetched up a hemisphere away, in Dublin: “We had never been to Ireland before, and knew nobody here,” they recall.

A Google search of ‘best places to live in Ireland’, with access to good education and opportunities, threw up Kinsale as an option: “However, Google failed to tell us that the P17 Eircode is one of the most sought-after in Ireland and that houses for sale in this area are scarce,” adds the woman of the house, an entrepreneur with interest in art and design.

Black Quay House is only 20 years old but has already been brought up to date again after a recent interior revamp

They also learned of the difficulties in getting planning permission to build a home; found a house to rent in Kinsale; sourced schools and, “having moved from a big city, we knew that we wanted a slower pace of life near all the amenities that a young family need. Some of the prerequisites were to live preferably near a beach, close to an airport, and must have top schools nearby; Kinsale ticked all those boxes.”

Later, on a house hunt, they came across Black Quay House, a stone-faced dormer built in 2002 on elevated farmland two fields back from the River Bandon, 6km from Kinsale, at Hollyhill, and near Dunderrow.

It had been built day one by a woman with local knowledge of the topography, and where to get sunrises and sunsets and connect visually to the River Bandon.

“We both fell in love with the house and the feeling that it had. You could feel that this house had been loved.”

Having paid €800,000 back in 2023, according to the Price Register, Black Quay House’s second owners did a thorough renovation and upgrade. “It was in good condition, but was a house of its time,” right up to the attic, and the renovations followed up with the garden and patio area earlier this year.

With an utterly fresh feel inside and outside now, it’s been put for sale as the family has managed to get planning permission to build their dream home in the area (he now works in the Eli Lilly pharma plan 3km away), yet admit that of all the places they have been to date, “both of us agree that this is the most special home that we have ever lived in”.

Their B2-rated c 3,080 sq ft five-bed/two en-suite home (with two more dormer rooms at second-floor level at the roof’s ridge) is on half an acre, behind electric gates, a few hundred yards from the Bandon river, c 6km from Kinsale town, with a steel shed used as a gym, and a very special outdoor seating/viewing balcony area — the flat roof of the gable end conservatory, reached off the main en-suite bedroom.

Views include sunsets and sunrises, starry night skies, the 15th century Kilgobbin Castle, coastal rowers from Kilmacsimon, power boats or more leisurely otters, or the odd dolphin or seal, as well as “a lonely tree, near the banks of the river, that reminds me of Acacia trees in Africa”, says one of the owners, adding that they look like umbrellas….with real umbrellas likely something they’ve happily enough adapted to after a route to Kinsale, South Africa, via Spain and Dublin.

Features include a new Nobilia (German design) kitchen with top-tier appliances and Quooker tap, security system, hardwood floors and staircase with twin ‘monkey tail’ handrail ends, New Zealand wool carpets, some feature wall panelling, electric car charger, and a robotic lawnmower for the lawns, with two entrances off a quiet country road.

Selling agent is Lawrence Sweeney of Savills, who guides at €1.15 and who says “it’s most definitely beautiful.”

VERDICT: Black Quay House is more than 20 years old, but feels like new again.