Harvest the rewards of Neo-Gothic glory down on ‘The Farm’

Quality craftsmanship, unique living quarters and a tennis court are part of the deal

The Farm, Bandon, Co Cork. Picture: Jakub Walutek 

Bandon, West Cork
€1.5m
Size	418sq m (4,475sq ft)
Bedrooms	5 + 1
Bathrooms	3 + 1
BER	Exempt

The expression “new house, new life” came true in spades for Anne O’Mahony and Colman O’Sullivan in the early 2000s when they bought Bandon’s unique Gothic Revival confection, The Farm — although ‘new’ hardly describes a place which by then had 180 years of its own local history.

No sooner had the couple with three children jumped to buy the one-off West Cork home a few miles west of Bandon in 2002, than news came of another resident-to-be: a baby daughter was on the way. Just as well it’s a big and accommodating home.

Now, after almost a quarter of a century of the happiest times, the warmest of memories forged and the early 19th century place itself looking better than it has ever before, it’s moving on time, and trading down time for the grown family who lived, sported and played here, with the grass tennis court just about to be relined this month as all are keen and talented tennis players.

“We’ve one grandchild now and one on the way. Our first, who’s nearly two was throwing stones in the pond and the only sadness is she’ll never have memories of being here,” says retired solicitor Anne O’Mahony, saying, quite simply, “our time here has been a joy”.

Originally built for the Anglo-Irish Bernard/Lord Bandon family whose main residence was Castle Bernard closer to the town (built around an earlier O’Mahony castle), The Farm is a true piece of Bandon history, and has clearly survived today in rude good health, whilst Castle Bernard was burned down in 1921.

However, as a Tralee-born woman who studied law in Dublin, current occupant Anne (who’d bought Gerald Goldberg’s Cork practice, selling it again in the early 2000s to retire young) cannot claim a link to the original O’Mahony clan who controlled Bandon. Those ‘other’ Bandon O’Mahonys’ lands had been handed to ‘settlers’ after the Desmond Rebellion over 400 years ago.

The closest this ‘Farm’ family’s roots go to West Cork, she jokes, is on her artist husband Colman O’Sullivan’s side, he having hailed from coastal Courtmacsherry.

It was ‘love at first sight’ at The Farm, when the couple saw it, at the time owned by a German couple who used it as an Irish base. Before that, it was owned by an English family and, when visited by this reporter in the 1990s when they were selling, was a far less engaging — yet always engrossing oddity — remembered as darker and gloomier, with some foreboding … ideal, it seemed, for evocative U2 videos to be shot there.

Prior owners then were the Appelbes, who came after the Bernards, and the lands originally served from The Farm ( in earliest maps shown as Bernard Court) are today whittled down to a manageable two acres.

Near to separately-owned farm buildings, it’s set back from the N71 past a winsome looking cottage up a private lane. The grounds include a quaint one-bed guest cottage, a high walled ruin, a tennis court, formal circular pond with stone fountain and rails, gardens, gargantuan monkey puzzle tree, as well as oaks, beeches, hydrangeas, and ‘proper’ rhododendron.

Oh but really, it’s kind of all about the house, isn’t it?

It was designed by busy Cork architect Joseph Welland and bears many similarities to Welland’s C of I St Peter’s Church in Bandon, built in 1847-49 of sandstone, limestone, and with Bath stone for the elaborate Gothic window tracery.

The window at The Farm is said by selling agent Brendan Bowe to be an exact replica of the one crowning the impressive, bifurcated staircase at the far end of the 75ft long main hallway, once you get past an as-impressive ornate limestone porch.

What, 75ft long? Yes, longer than a 10-pin bowling lane (about 62ft) and it’s a stunner with its repeat, fan-vaulted ceilings, corbels and baronial fireplace with the Bernard family crest, above a polished terrazzo floor.

Along with these Neo-Gothic or Gothic Revival touches and flourishes (including in several of the five/six bedrooms), there are ornate timbers, oak doors and cases, wall panelling, etc — a triumph of workmanship.

To try to replicate some or all of it today would cost millions upon millions of euro in labour, craftsmanship, and materials, in fact, multiples of the asking price, cited at €1.5m by Bandon-, Ballincollig-, and Kinsale-based agent Brendan Bowe.

In terms of layout, it’s sort of lopsided, or perhaps more politely ‘distinctive,’ in that almost all of the rooms under its double roof are to one side of the long hall (or off the as-long first floor landing in terms of bedrooms), which is to the north, so the best rooms, and bedrooms have a southerly aspect, where light streams in through ornate Gothic arched and casement windows: the pièce de résistance staircase window gets western light.

The Farm will be familiar to many locals, both for its history and for its presence as the family hosted a number of cultural events here over a number of years as part of Bandon’s Engage Arts Festival in the mid 2010s.

It was briefly on the market, with other agents, in the mid 2010s, but for family reasons the O’Sullivan/O’Mahony clan decided not to sell at the time. The price quoted now is the same as it was a decade or so ago, despite considerable price inflation since (€1m to €2m home sales in Bandon are comparatively rare).

According to selling agent Brendan Bowe, initial interest for this 2026 launch is coming from the local market as well as the UK, and Germany — ironically reprising the nationalities of the two previous owners, as well as from the United States as it’s such a trophy-looking, genuine Irish period buy, within 30 minutes or so of Cork City and international airport.

Coincidentally, that likely buyer mix broadly approximates to the viewer mix which came to look at the immaculate Regency Georgian-style villa Knockmacool further west of Bandon by Ahiohill, a 4,100sq ft ‘replica’ on 2.6acres, built from scratch in 2005.

Knockmacool launched in these pages in March at €1.25m with Savills, and is confirmed to be sale agreed already, for a price well in excess of the guide.

VERDICT: The real deal period home with all the trimmings doesn’t get any realer that down on The Farm