A labour of love brings new life to €750k Mount Ruby in Mallow

Returning from the US, Constance Leahy lovingly restored her family’s Mallow home, Mount Ruby — blending heritage warmth with modern comfort

Agent Linda O'Donovan of Bowe Property guides the rejuvenated Mount Ruby on over five lovely acres at €750,000

Navigation Road, Mallow Cork
€750,000
Size	233 sq  (2,500 sq ft)
Bedrooms	5
Bathrooms	4
BER	Pending

SET ON Mallow’s Navigation Road, the beguiling and warm-hued Mount Ruby is a detached, family home on over five acres, with 70 years of history and, now, a recent very effective transformative link, from both sides of the Atlantic.

Mount Ruby featured here in 2021 with its already detailed history of previous and present occupants outlined in a long editorial in these property pages by vendors, the Sheahan family, with seven of that clan’s children reared, raised and given a free-range childhood here. 

Think ponies, chickens, organic food, and hideaway reading spaces in the embracing boughs of a centuries-old oak tree in the grounds.

From tiny acorns, mighty oaks grow

Turned out, parting was too sweet a sorrow!

One of the Sheahan family, Constance Leahy, who’s been in the US for 35 years, bought out her siblings’ interest in the family home and started painstaking renovations at Mount Ruby, with hopes of returning at some stage, meanwhile making great use of it for regular returns for holidays and clan gatherings.

However, roots Stateside have deepened with even more Leahy grandchildren, and reluctantly she’s decided to sell it in its Mark 2 state, mixing the best of old with new, and to seek something smaller around Mallow.

“I believe if you buy the best, you get the best back out of it. The top of the line went it and that’s how I guided the work here. I’m sorry to be selling. 

It wasn’t done to sell on,” says Constance, who has a background in design (creativity runs in the extended Sheahan family — her sister, Veronica Molloy, published her first novel, All I Cannot Save, last year.

In any case, Constance was more spend than save. With input of well-regarded builder Anthony Foley, Mount Ruby has had a new high-end kitchen by Cullen View, with sleek wall-mounted stove; new bathrooms (the main’s top notch), other plumbing and electrical upgrades with water filtration added; replastering inside, including over the old, stippled Artex-style ceilings; new energy-efficient lighting: new energy-efficient windows (15) and doors; new oil boiler and tank; rebuilt and re-roofed outhouses, as well as new field gates.

As a fully-fledged new entity with good

Kitchen by Cullen View

older bones, Mount Ruby is back on the market, likely to be one of the best trade-up homes available in the wider Mallow area, near the racecourse and wider activity offers, walks and hacks, and with all the work done, and done well.

It’s listed with Linda O’Donovan of Bowe Property with a €750,000 AMV, looking and feeling very different to its 2021 offering, with its core values and appeal all present and correct. 

In 2021 it was offered at €595,000 on 2.5 acres with the balance of another 2.5 acres at €110,000 (the Price Register shows it selling in 2022 for €420,000, but that’s as a partial value on one acre as other siblings shares were bought out). 

Offering now in one lot only, Bowe Property’s Ms O’Donovan says there’s a rare combination of land (5.8 acres) location, luxury, and comfort all perfect for a family seeking timeless lifestyle attractions.

VERDICT: Kudos all around.