House of the Week: €625k Lislee is ripe with heritage and core family values

This four-bed detached Maryborough property is in one of the early estates built in the once-expansive grounds of the 1730s Maryborough House

4 Lislee, Maryborough Estate. Pictures: Lyne Media

Maryborough Estate, Douglas
€625,000
Size	165 sq m (1,770 sq ft)
Bedrooms	4
Bathrooms	3
BER	E2

Footloose, carefree and fancy-free childhood days are lovingly recalled as the long-time and much-loved family home 4 Lislee comes up for sale — ripe with tales of slogging apples from the old orchard on the doorstep, at Maryborough House, as well as late into summer holidays in Fountainstown, where other orchard raids could be thwarted by a watchful gardener.

In the case of the Fountainstown petty crime scene, when the eagle-eyed gardener caught a child in the act, he’d make him or her take off their shoes: they’d only be returned when a parent came to collect the retained shoes and apologise on behalf of their errant offspring, who’d then get rightly reprimanded once back home.

Not every pair of shoes got returned: “I’d tell my mother they’d floated away, or got taken, or lost,” laughs reformed former serial apple slogger and now well-shod Kieran McAuliffe.

He grew up in now-suburban Maryborough in Cork’s Douglas, where Lislee was one of the early estates built in the once-expansive grounds of the 1730s Maryborough House, and where he, his three brothers, and wide circle of pals had a free-range childhood, roaming freely and, thanks to the adjacent Maryborough House’s orchard, profitably, thanks to ‘windfalls.’

From the mid-1960s, that great period house’s grounds were developed for new, linked estates such as Lislee and Limetrees, Maryborough Estate and Newenham Drive, with a mix of solidly-built detacheds and semi-ds, while the walled orchard is now home to a cash-crop of a dozen or so very large one-off houses, which typically re-sell at prices from €1 million to €2.4m for a single whopper on a double site.

Maryborough’s detached 4 Lislee was one of the early arrivals, built by Coveney Brothers and moved into in 1968 by a young couple, Dan and Mary McAuliffe: they’d first lived at McAuliffe’s shop and post office in Gurranabraher, then rented in Douglas’ Shamrock Lawn while waiting for the brand new 4 Lislee to be completed.

“We were in and out of everyone’s home, the doors were never locked, and you could be fed too,” Kieran recalls of the more innocent days, when rosy-cheeked (thanks, apples) kids could play on buildings sites; soccer and GAA would start spontaneously and kung-fu kicking might occasionally break out.

Dan and Mary McAuliffe raised their four sons, Martin, Noel, Kieran and Niall, at four-bed Lislee, and it comes for sale now after the passing of Mary McAuliffe in March of last year.

It shows all the signs of loving care during the family’s 58-year tenure: gently updated, extended into the former side garage and the original porch with porthole window has been integrated into a larger hall. Immaculately presented, it measures up at 165 sq m or 1,770 sq ft. 

Selling is Trevor O’Sullivan of Lisney Sotheby’s International Realty, and he guides at €625,000. The Price Register shows the most recent Lislee home sale, No 33, at €600,000 by early 2026, while Newenham Drive has some higher sales, at €650,000 and €700,000.

Mr O’Sullivan describes Lislee’s location as “one of Cork’s most desirable residential addresses", and while it’s a perfect family home for a range of ages, including traders-up, he feels it will appeal to better-heeled first-time buyers in particular.

It has linked, front-to-back twin reception rooms on the right, behind the hall a third reception room opens to a flat-roofed kitchen extension, while a door off the kitchen spans a side passage linking to a front-facing home office, store, and guest wc, with a further guest WC by the main hall.

Two sets of double doors, one off the kitchen the other from the rear dining room, open to a raised deck and mature back garden, while upstairs the original detached home’s floor-plan sees four bedrooms (three doubles, one single), one room per corner, and one has had an en suite fitted.

Well-presented No 4 has double glazing, gas heating and an E2 BER, and “would qualify for a range of energy upgrade grants, offering purchasers the potential to further enhance its efficiency and value,” Mr O’Sullivan says.

VERDICT: Core value: No 4 Lislee has been the apple of the McAuliffe family’s eye.