Putting the tin hat on a Glengarriff property for €545,000

A striking Glengarriff home features unique architecture, breathtaking bay views, and a perfect lock-up-and-leave design

Shrone View, Glengarriff, Co Cork.

Glengarriff, West Cork
€545,000
Size	124 sq m (1,335 sq ft)
Bedrooms	3
Bathrooms	2
BER	A2

THE expression “that puts the tin hat on it” applies at least in one very obvious way at Shrone Hill View: The recently built home by the entrance to West Cork’s Glengarriff village is standout, thanks to its black corrugated steel cladding, roof, and, a steel-clad eyrie right up top for view soaking.

Built only a couple of years ago by a woman living elsewhere in Co Cork as a West Cork bolt-hole, Shrone Hill View replaced an older cottage or bungalow just above the N71 as it drops down to Glengarriff, opposite the quite remarkable Bamboo Park.

It’s much remarked upon itself given its prominence and “newness”, likely to settle in more once the beech hedge planted in front of it gets more maturity and height.

A quite novel look, with lower belt of render painted a lichen shade of green under the extensive “on-trend” black corrugated steel upper half, roof, and belvedere look-out higher still as a sort of ‘crow’s nest’, Shrone Hill View is also notable because of its extra height, and irregularly-placed windows, large up top, smaller underneath, where the three bedrooms are located.

Visually presenting as brand new inside and out, the A-rated 1,335sq ft “upside down” house has just come to the 2026 market, listed with Olivia Hanafin and Niamh Moloney, of Sherry FitzGerald O’Neill, with a €545,000 asking price.

They expect interest from couples, from busy professionals wanting a walk-in order home in one of Ireland’s most acknowledged beauty spots, and from overseas house hunters.

An ideal option for those who want a “lock up and leave” house with elevated grounds set up for low maintenance into the future despite its slope, first viewings have just started to take place.

The certainty is that any and all will be drawn upstairs from the get-go, up to the largely open plan main living/kitchen/dining room, with a partial vast lofted ceiling, and its two very large picture windows, the gable one looking to mature greenery for year-round nature observing.

The other, up front, is the “money shot”, giving expansive views out over the lushness of the long-established Bamboo Park, to Glengarriff Bay, towards Garinish Island, and out the Beara Peninsula to the outline of the Caha Mountains, towards Hungry Hill and the Sugarloaf. (One of the first viewers, this week, was a trade-down couple looking to relocate from Wicklow, home to an even more famous Sugarloaf mountain and amused by the coincidence.’

Shrone Hill View was built by local contractor Jimmy Harrington, designed by architectural engineer John J O’Sullivan. Build method here is timber frame, with external block leaf on the lower section, given a smooth painted render, with small vertical ground level windows — triple glazed and in black frames — with a tall opening window/door in one gable bedroom, acting as a second point if needed for external access.

There appears to be little indoor/outdoor connectivity in this design, with just those limited ground-level points and none above in terms of balconies in the first-floor main living space, with few opening windows, possibly part of the energy efficiency, with air-to-air heat pump being the main heating source, and with an electric flame effect fire in the high-ceilinged seating section, with a back-up ceramic wall mounted heater.

There’s an “as new” feel to everything, with gleaming walnut-look laminate flooring, with Silestone tops on the kitchen units.

There’s a mid-level guest WC off the kitchen, while the main bathroom is at ground level, with underfoot heating, and has a large walk-in shower to serve the three relatively compact bedrooms. Also, at ground level, is a utility/store room.

Anyone with even a scintilla of curiosity will want to go for a look-see/look! sea? to the top floor, described as a study/den.

It’s the perfect sit back and gaze out at the beauty of the setting, and out to the hillside townland of Shrone off the Castletownbere road, giving Shrone Hill View its name. This eyrie is under sloping ceilings, with some eaves storage, and has restricted head height.

Under building regulations, it can’t be described as a bedroom/habitable space, but it does what it was intended to do: Opens to the natural panorama of sky, bay, mountain, and woodland…all it needs is a wide, built-in window seat to while away the hours with.

The near views include the Bamboo Park, here since 1999 and modelled on one in the south of France, adorned not only by a range of massive range of bamboo, but also by palm trees, and ferns on acres long-famed for allowing semi-tropical plants to thrive thanks to the warming effect down the years of the Gulf Stream.

Glengarriff starts to open up its long roadside stretch on the N71/Wild Atlantic Way just under Shrone Hill View, with the Eccles Hotel a couple of minutes’ walk away; triple glazing at this one-off roadside build helps to mitigate traffic sound, while foundations are in place to the rear for a garage/storage building by a large retaining wall, with woodland above at this Reenmeen East Glengarriff bolthole.

VERDICT

: Impossible to miss right now as a new arrival above the road, and distinctive in just about anyone’s book. The upside down layout means the one-off Shrone Hill View really “does exactly what it says on the tin”.