Glory be: the decades have been kind to Cork's €625k The Rosary

Chef's Ballincurrig Douglas semi-detached home is a tasty delight

Fri, 26 Sep, 2025 - 00:00

Property Editor Tommy Barker reports Pictures: Janice O'Connell/F22

Douglas Road, Cork City
€625,000
Size	119 sq m (1,280 sq ft)
Bedrooms	3
Bathrooms	3
BER	D1

THE decades have been kind to this superbly located home called The Rosary — it’s a classic semi-detached build associated with chi-chi Ballincurrig Park, wears its c 70 years of age elegantly, and faces some of Cork city’s finest (and even older) private period houses on discrete grounds on the main Douglas Road….it’s in very good company.

Main Douglas Road setting for The Rosary, 4 Ballincurrig Park Douglas

Built behind tall limestone walls, those two big facing detacheds, Ilfracombe and Redgarth, date to the later 1800s and early 1900s, both designed by architect Arthur Hill: the former, Redgarth was his own home.

Today, still reflecting grandeur, they are in the multi-million euro value league if ever put to market. Half a century later on after those late Victorian/Edwardian beauties laid down market for desirable residences, along came the cul de sac Ballincurrig Park, with a handful of semi-s marking the 1950s estate’s presence on the main Douglas Road, of which The Rosary is one, also known as 4 Ballincurrig Park.

It’s only ever had a handful of owners, the current owners have been here for over 20 years, cared for it and curated it, enhancing its charming original features and bought it, the woman of the house smiles, from a family called Sellers, a case of nominative determinism she’s never forgotten.

Now, she’s a seller, it’s trade down time and as The Rosary comes for sale with a modest-seeming €625,000 AMV quoted by impressed estate agent Stephen Clarke of REA O’Donoghue Clarke it reflects the owner’s two professional strengths: a flair for interior design and tailoring homes with due respect, as well as a reputation as an innovative gourmet chef.

Do it by the book: larder press by shelves of cookery books (there's also a very good utility elsewhere)

The hands behind The Rosary previously had a city centre design shop , in the 2000s on Cork’s MacCurtain Street (and also worked on high-end home design briefs for clients), and she also worked entrepreneurially in the food/hospitality sector across a number of enterprises.

The kitchen here is testament to graft, almost semi-professional in its efficiency and thanks to its adjacent pantry, and to its cleverly created food larder, it must have prepped meals for many thousands of appreciative recipients down the years: if tummies could talk, they’d say grace after meals for the miracle of loaves and dishes from The Rosary.

Window shutters in the main, south-facing bedroom by Acme Blinds

It comes for sale at the time of a well-simmering suburban Cork market, when homes of similar vintage in such long settled settings are selling in the €600k - €900k price bracket, with a four-bed semi in nearby Browningstown topping €900k of late, in superb condition after an extension by its quantity surveyor owner.

The Rosary was a four-bed when it last sold, but the owners skillfully turned it into a three-bedroomed home with a well-proportioned private en suite bathroom added on to the back, south-aspected main bedroom.

As a big family home wasn’t really needed, the owners adapted the ground floor to their own living needs, opening up the level with aplomb to create a double aspect, front to back living/dining room with access to a raised deck via double doors.

It overlooks a very sheltered back garden, a south facing sun trap ringed by mature trees, favoured by birdlife, especially the very tall pine tree planted in a back garden corner as an outdoor Christmas tree for a son the first year or two of coming to live here atop Ballincurrig Park at No 4.

When last changing hands in the early 2000s, The Rosary got work done sensitively, inside and outside, mindful of its mid-20th aesthetic and with garden planting that has since given increasing pleasure, colour, screening and scents in mind.

A quite high front boundary wall gives privacy in any case, enhanced then with planting inside that includes climbers bearding the corner, climbing hydrangea, silver birch, pink and white magnolia trees, cordyline, azaleas and peonies, and there’s good off-street parking frontand side on gravel, with a substantial lapped timber garage plus shed towards a side and a back boundary.

Out back, initial planting was by Ronan Nangle with acers, magnolias, lilac and a stunning Italian jasmine that flowers for six months “with a heavenly scent, all planting was carefully chosen, with scent in mind.” Later comes wild rose, two of them now mature with a flowering wisteria filling the back wall and double doors to the interior, with scent drifting up to the bedroom overhead also.

Other senses get stimulated, such as visually feeding the eyes and to taste, with an extensive herb garden, including fennel, sorrel, tarragon, sage and more, all used in cooking from the ergonomically efficient kitchen a few paces away: farm to fork? This is on a micro-level.

Considerable work was done inside in 2002 when the kitchen and back reception room were conjoined, with a hefty salvaged timber beam now a real internal feature with real supporting role.

Then, lest things go in any way twee, this ancient old beam lending a sort of French Provencal air contrasts visually with an exposed steel RSJ in the ceiling now between the what would have been the two original distinct reception rooms: this considerable opening up and bracing work was done by top firm Cumnor Construction.

Joiner/carpenter Rory McLiam did a kitchen island in birch ply with poured and polished concrete top, a match for flecked granite tops on the other side of the wide Aga range with gas hob and electric ovens. Rory McLiam also did radiator covers, floating bookshelves, stacked with cooker books, unsurprisingly and — a stroke of spatial genius — created a capacious larder press behind double doors in a space which would have linked the kitchen to the hall, left surplus to requirements after the three ground level rooms all joined up as one almost penthouse suite.

The hall, stairs and landing retain a very original feel, albeit with a useful cloakroom now opening into it, instead of into what would have been a front dining room when it might have served as a china and glass cupboard.

The Oriental stair runner is in a velvet pile, hand-finished, sourced from Casey’s and easily follows the stairs turn and return, while the hall floor is original oak, with painted floors in the double up reception rooms and terrazzo floor in the kitchen, with tiling and masses of shelving in the stepped down utility room, where every size pot and pan plus kitchen appliances are stored, out of sight, yet but right at hand.

A simple chimneybreast ope with slender black metal surround and grate/

basket is an adjunct heat source and visual feast when lit, with gas central heating throughout. The Rosary now hits a pretty alright D1 BER, not bad for a home of its vintage, with double glazing in all of the main windows and bays, while the house’s original feature steel windows are recalled in several retained pristine examples in the cloakroom, stairs/landing and main bathroom.

Also true to period are the cast iron bath in the fully tiled bathroom, the sanitary ware, the internal wall renders, doors, architraves and picture rails.

Suitable enhancements include brass light switches from a range by UK firm Bromleighs, while the restful main bedroom (and en suite) is country style, with a hand-blocked wallpaper by Irish specialist David Skinner who has worked on OPW project and stately Irish homes for decades.

INTERNAL colours and paints are from Farrow & Ball in the main, with some Irish Colourtend variations, while the exterior with louvered window shutters has some shades and finishes from Marston & Langinger (now M&L.) All three bedrooms have a restful feminine charm, finely balanced for family, guests and an adored grandchild. The main suite is a sanctuary, with its calm demeanor, expensive wallpaper and, distinctively, with folding shutters for near-total light blackout, done by Ryan Hasson of Acme who also did the blinds in other rooms.

The view from the back bedroom is almost a revelation, as while it looks down and over a number of houses and gardens in ‘inner’ Ballincurrig beneath, the real and distant view is to the hills south of the city by Vernon Mount, Frankfield and toward the Airport Hill.

That view is facilitated by the fact these main Douglas Road pairs of semis are set is slightly higher than the rest of cul de sac block Ballincurrig Park, and so No 4 aka The Rosary’s garden is sloped, or more appropriately stepped, with a lower lawn, mature side and back boundaries (including some well tamed bamboo) and the link is a very substantial deck off the back living area, all ship-shape, done by carpenter/sailors Sandy Rimmington and Nicholas O’Leary, in very thick planks, with rails in hawser-like hemp rope, and sturdy steps down for regular herb harvests below the deck.

Garden furniture comes from O’Brien Office Supplies; there’s just shy of 1,300 sq ft inside, but No 4 both feels and looks bigger, thanks to the stepped back exterior and varied roof profile which these homes share with others inside on Ballincurrig’s western flank: some other Ballincurrig pairs are far plainer.

Douglas’s The Rosary is lifted to a high visual plane too by dint of curated art collected over decades; paintings; papier mache dogs by Tom Campbell; some eclectic furniture choices, from antiques via family; a gilt mirror from Hugh McPhillips in Marshs;, chandeliers, a Philippe Starcke Ghost chair by Kartell , Eileen Gray-style table, Conrad coffee table, and lighting from a mix including Flow, a Bauhaus lamp from Technolumen, and side lights by Bestlite by Gubi.

Distinctive too is the way several rooms have ceiling lights deliberately set off centre, placed by windows instead of centrally: photographer Jan O’Connell who has a specialty in architectural images says it’s a feature she’s aware of in other homes in the Douglas locale and wider afield and is reckoned to be an adaptation used by canny architects to add privacy to domestic and other rooms as it restricts view into those rooms’ interiors and occupants’ internal movements.

Having got its measure, REA O’Donoghue’s Stephen Clarke says Douglas Road’s No 4 Ballincurrig Park “has stood the test of time, and oozes tranquillity and homeliness, on private and mature gardens,” and adds that the accessible location (bus stops by the gate) is top-drawer, within minutes’ walk of national schools (Eglantine Girls and St Anthony’s Boys,) as well as public parks, playing pitches, and even public swimming pool.
VERDICT: Standard enough semi-ds all around ‘old’ Douglas and Ballinlough are selling like hot-cakes, The Rosary is more special than most. Expect strong bidding from a spectrum, including traders-down from even grander homes.