Munster and Ireland legend’s family home on Cork's Model Farm Road hits the market for €1.15m

On a fine site in a niche cul-de-sac off Model Farm Road, Melmore's gardens and location are top-class, while the house itself needs modernisation and upgrades

Melmore, Cherry Grove, Model Farm Road

Model Farm Road, Cork
€1.15m
Size	-
Bedrooms	6
Bathrooms	6
BER	F

MICK LANE was so immersed in building up the family business and raising half a dozen kids that you’d like to think he put his international rugby career behind him with ease, even one as distinguished as his.

Over a few short years in the late 1940s-early 1950s, he achieved what many players only ever dream of. He was part of the Irish side that won both the Five Nations Championship and the Triple Crown in 1949; he lined out for the all-star Barbarians in their Easter tour of Wales the same year and went on to play in the 1950 British and Irish Lions tours of New Zealand and Australia — one of the most successful in the team’s history.

His final appearance in the green jersey came in 1953, the year he married his beloved Betty, after which his priorities turned firmly to family life. As a second generation builder — his father, Joseph Lane, had founded the family business — he was in a position to build his own home, which he did, expanding it over time as his brood grew.

Melmore

“It was a typical builder’s house. It started out as a three-bed and it ended up as a six-bed,” laughs one of his daughters.

Mick’s building background surely helped inform his choice of location for the family home. Cherry Grove, to this day, is one of Model Farm Rd’s more notable cul-de-sacs.

Homes in Cherry Grove

 All of the homes are quite different; none are anyway small. Garden sizes are in the one-third-of-an-acre range. The Lane family home — Melmore — was one of the early houses on this leafy lane, tucked up off Model Farm Rd. While additional bespoke homes have materialised on the laneway over the years, none have compromised on size.

 The evidence of the Property Price Register suggests re-sales are rare — just two since the register was established in 2010. One was Moyola, Melmore’s next door neighbour, which sold a decade ago for €900,000. Like Melmore, it was dated.

Moyola before it was extended and upgraded

 New owners kept the shell (easy to tell because the original featured in these pages when up for sale in 2016) but it’s a fresh, contemporary-looking home now, with single and two story extensions to front, side and rear, thanks to a corner site. 

Moyola (left) after the upgrade

Permission for a two storey extension was also given to Curraghmore, the only other house to sell in Cherry Grove since 2010.

The trend among new owners at Cherry Grove is to make more of these already substantial homes, traditionally favoured by medics (on the right side of the city for CUH/Bon Secours), academics (near MTU and UCC) and more recently, IT professionals, given how close it is to Cork Business and Technology Park.

It’s a safe bet new owners will ring in changes at Melmore — the children that grew up there say that other than extensions, it hasn’t changed much since it was built in the 1970s — but as the site it’s on is a generous 0.3-acre, all you need is a good architect and no shortage of cash.

For your investment, you get to settle in a highly desirable “home-for-life” neighbourhood, on a road where €1m-plus house sales are now commonplace, both new and secondhand.

You will also inherit an extremely well-tended garden, where a magnificent magnolia tree takes centre stage out front, while clever planting at the end of the sizable rear lawn has produced a mature screen of trees, ensuring the utmost privacy.

Melmore – named after Melmore Head in Donegal, where Mick and Betty honeymooned — was a terrific home for the Lane brood: handy to schools, third-level, sporting facilities (none of the Lane children played rugby at Mick’s level, although his nephew, Michael Kiernan, did).

Mick played his club rugby with Dolphin and was inducted into the Rugby Writers of Ireland Hall of Fame in 2011.

Statuette marking Mick's induction into the Rugby Writers of Ireland Hall of Fame in 2011.

“Our parents lived at Melmore for 72 very happy years, until they both passed away last year, Betty aged 97 and Mick 99,” their daughter says.

 Prior to Mick’s passing, he was the last surviving member of the 1950s Lions tour, following the death of Lewis Jones in 2024. Following his passing he was remembered during a minute’s silence at an Autumn International in the Aviva Stadium last November.

Melmore holds a lifetime of great memories for the Lane clan, but they’re all settled now — in Cork City, Chicago, and Schull — so it’s time to sell up.

Dennis Guerin and Chloe Reidy of Frank V Murphy auctioneers describe it as “an exceptional detached family residence on a generous 0.3-acre site in an exclusive, mature residential setting”.

“While offering substantial accommodation throughout, this property would now benefit from modernisation and re-imagining to realise its full potential,” say the agents, who are guiding the property at €1.15m.

VERDICT: Substantial family home that will benefit from renovations and upgrades. Smashing gardens. Model Farm Rd location is the cherry on top