Pristine €350k Lower Glanmire Road home is on the right track

Owner for the past 25 years did all the smart and solid work this mid-1800s-built terraced house needed

Fri, 31 Oct, 2025 - 12:59

Tommy Barker Property Editor

Lower Glanmire Road, Cork City
€350,000
Size	95 sq m (1,030 sq ft)
Bedrooms	3
Bathrooms	2
BER	c2

COMPARED to a number of their near neighbours, the owners of the now smartly upgraded and pristine 148 Lower Glanmire Road are virtually ‘blow-ins’ — they’ve only been connected to it for, oh, a mere quarter of a century.

Neighbourly stretch, says owner who bought No 148 in 2000

When No 148 last changed hands in 2000, it had been 50 years or more in its previous owners’ hands, same as some still-resident owner occupiers here in this venerable city terraced stretch by Water Street: here, much change and urban renewal is on the cards for the decades ahead along Horgan’s Quay, starting possibly from as soon as next next year.

Conceptual views of the new public realm on Horgan's Quay in Cork's docklands

While much of Lower Glanmire Road is often in flux, the half a dozen two-storey terraced homes in this run by the road-spanning rail bridge on the Cobh and Midleton commuter line to the east have in contrast held families and couples, even across generations and for lifetimes, says one of No 148’s now departing owners after his 25 years’ care here, with a further renovation project now in mind at another venerable city quarter, near Shandon.

When he bought No 148 back in 2000, an architect surveying it for him told him to forget it, said it needed too much work, wasn’t worth it, and then inadvertently went on to prove his point by falling three feet through a rotten floor in the front room ….

Undeterred, the man of the house bought it anyway, did a round of renovations at the time, but then went at it on a much deeper level in 2008/09, putting in proper foundations under the front as it had effectively, been constructed without them at the time when first built. It dates to the 1860s, at a time period between the first railway station (1850s) on the Lower Glanmire Road, and the second, current one, Kent Station dating to the 1890s.

Old slob bricks exposed in the upstairs landing

He also later opened up the entire back area of the mid-terrace house so that now it’s spacious and surprisingly 1,030 sq ft, a much-loved and appreciated private home, bar for some intervening years when rented as a quality base while he worked overseas in places as diverse as London, Spain, Portugal and South Africa.

It’s in walk-in condition, with good roof, new gutters, DPC down at ground level, with new services, new carpets and good flooring/tiling, contemporary kitchen, high insulation levels and doubly insulated attic.

Its front double glazed windows are special acoustic reduction glazing (from Classic Windows, often used in trafficked areas), although the owner says the train noise from the bridge crossing at a diagonal almost across the road is surprisingly minimal as movements so close to Kent Station are at very low speeds.

The immediate vicinity is set to see major changes in the next few years too, with the Land Development Agency delivering the first of many hundreds of apartments at Horgan’s Quay; the N8 into the city is to be realigned to create a 680m long amenity area by the river facing south; a new bridge to the south quays has been planned for the Water Street junction, and then, further east, the Port of Cork’s Tivoli facility is a sleeping giant in terms of future residential and other mixed-use capacity.

Much of that is ‘further down the line’ with the first sea-change at Horgan’s Quay where apartments now joining office developments at Penrose Quay and Horgan’s Quay/HQ (where Apple is a significant occupier) and the Dean Hotel ...all having been witnessed by the couple now departing No 148 Lower Glanmire Road.

On track: the HQ scheme on Horgan's Quay (CGI image from 2019)

It goes to market with Sean McCarthy of ERA Downey McCarthy with a €350,000 AMV (that’s likely to be cheaper than any apartments at Clarendon/BAM/LDA’s 300-unit advancing development HQ where a number of sale offers are expected along with cost rental homes). Mr McCarthy says No 148 has been superbly upgraded, and maintained and is very well presented, with a number or attractive features, such as a modern 25’ deep kitchen/diner, contrasting with exposed old yellow slob bricks between wall studs on the first floor landing, a reminder of the property’s 19th century roots.

The ERA agent can expect first-time buyer interest and, possibly, investors also as this three-bed home with ground floor shower room is not controlled by rent caps as it has been owner-occupied for a number of years.

Next door No 149 shows on the Register as a 2024 sale at €218,000, reflecting the fact that the house at that sale stage needed as much work as No 148 did when it was bought in the millennium year, and which it got, in spades and spadework.

VERDICT: As smart as the painting of the owners’ 13-year-old pet dog Oscar which hangs on No 148’s front room, done by an artist they came across during a holiday visit to Miami.