Great quack with Indian runner ducks at €425k Belgooly House of the Week

Buffed and polished to the nth degree, No 28 The Meadows is a cut above your usual housing estate home

28 The Meadows, Belgooly

Belgooly, Co Cork
€425,000
Size	125sq m (1,345sq ft)
Bedrooms	4
Bathrooms	3
BER	B1

HATS off to the owners of No 28 The Meadows in Belgooly for keeping it in tip-top shape despite sharing it with a lively crew — two Indian runner ducks, a dachshund, a great Dane, and two cats.

"The Girls" - two Indian runner ducks - keep things lively at No 28

In many respects, taking care of this fun and fluffy menagerie isn’t so different from raising kids: someone’s always hungry, they follow you absolutely everywhere, and you honestly wouldn’t have it any other way.

The Indian runner ducks were adopted from nuns in Inchigeela as an eco-friendly form of garden pest control and quickly struck up a friendship with Basil the dachshund. True to their name, runner ducks don’t waddle or fly, they run — perfect playmates for a kickabout with Basil.

“I call them the girls,” says Jack, one half of the couple living at No 28. “I was going to call them Hoisin and Peking but I thought that might be a bit cruel,”he quips.

Jack and his partner Joseph moved in during November 2020 and they have tipped away at the house ever since, upgrading and fine-tuning every corner, creating a walk-in home for the next owner.

“All of the boring bits are done. Everything you could think of, from photovoltaic panels and a 5kWh battery backup storage to a new hand-crafted kitchen. Cosmetically, the whole house was redone, and it really is on the next level. It’s not your typical four-bedroom estate home,” says Jack.

Nenagh-based kitchen specialist Declan O’Neill, of Tippo International Ltd, came to fit a new sandstone-coloured kitchen. 

The couple opted for an easy-to-clean formica countertop with matching windowsills — a hack Jack picked up from his own family home in Kinsale.

“I got the idea from my mum. Unlike timber sills, they don’t rot from soaps,” he says. Kitchen appliances are quality brands: a Bosch five-ring gas hob, a Fisher and Paykel extractor hood, Neff ovens. Light levels around the kitchen sink are good, with two velux windows overhead, while French doors to the back garden — a present from Jack’s mum to replace a sliding door — bring light into the dining area.

Good circulation downstairs — the kitchen/dining room opens, via glazed double doors, into the front lounge — makes entertaining enjoyable. 

The lounge is a stylish room with big bay window, timber flooring, and a solid fuel Kingstar stove, installed by O’Callaghan Fireplaces. As it also heats the upstairs chimney breast, it helps with whole house warmth.

 The couple’s efforts to improve energy efficiency brought their home up a few grades and it’s now a comfortable B1, making buyers eligible for green mortgage rates.

The agent handling the sale, Brendan Bowe, of Bowe Property, believes the 125sq m semi-d will be snapped up. “Everything is done — it won’t hang about for long,” he says. Even with a guide of €425,000, he’s expecting first-time buyers. Young families will like the fact that it’s on an end-of-terrace site, secured by gates (for the safety of children and other animals), with lots of green space.

“It’s the largest garden in the estate,” Jack adds.

 It includes a lawn, patio, timber deck, skilful planting by Joseph, and even a playhouse for the ducks. As “the girls” will be relocating with their owners — locally, as they love the community — the playhouse will be moving too.

In the event of children replacing animals at No 28, the national school is only four minutes down the road and the creche is even closer. You can walk to Belgooly village and it’s on a bus route. The coastal town of Kinsale is just a five-minute drive away.

VERDICT: Get your ducks in a row if you like this home as it’s likely to fly.