Blast from the past at €1.25m West Cork home

Surgical scalpel precision and explosive views at this Schull property

Foxcliff, Colla Hill, Colla, Schull, Co. Cork

Colla Hill, Schull, West Cork
€1.25m
Size	160 sq m (1,720 sq ft)
Bedrooms	4
Bathrooms	3
BER	C2

Experience and skill with a surgical scalpel, and a willingness to use dynamite, are just two aspects to the life of the family that built Schull’s Foxcliff just over half a century ago.

Colla Hill, out the shoreline from Schull village and with its island, harbour, and Fastnet view, was chosen by the late and leading Munster neuro-surgeon Ted (Timothy) Buckley — the first to practise in this most precise of medical/surgical fields in the south — for his family’s holidays and vital “down” days.

“He and my mother chose Schull because it was within two hours’ drive of Cork City and the CUH, then the Regional Hospital, if he got an emergency call,” says Oonagh Buckley, one of five daughters of Ted and Maeve Buckley: she says it delivered everything, and more, that their parents had hoped for.

The chosen two-acre site, above Colla Road on a rocky hill just before Colla Pier, needed dynamite to level enough space for the build, drive, and immediate gardens.

“We needed a Garda escort for the dynamite as it was the early 1970s and the IRA were active at the time,” recalls Oonagh.

Foxcliff got its name from foxes seen at the time of the site’s “reshaping”.

The Buckley family have had decades of fun here, enjoying the village of Schull in its quieter past, sailing dinghies and cruisers around Roaringwater Bay, and overnighting and camping on the myriad islands. “Often, there would be no one else at all on them — they were quieter days,” Oonagh says of a seasonal life on the sea.

Among the tributes to the late Ted’s personality and skills as a surgeon and teacher on rip.ie is a mention of his time as Schull sailing club’s commodore in the 1990s, so life on, and by, the water clearly was fully embraced.

Foxcliff appears to have been an open house, to family, visitors, waifs, and strays. Maeve was a lecturer in Italian in UCC and often students or random Italians would fetch up and stay. Ted’s holiday diaries had entries such as “day out sailing and pasta for 17 at dinner”.

The Buckley clan did a serious upgrade to their 1,700 sq ft, elevated four-bed bungalow around 2008, making it comfortable for year-round living in any weather, fair or foul, with the Fastnet flash a long-held memory scything through rooms at night and with expansive daytime views to Balti-more and the Mizen.

Oonagh and her dad Ted cocooned in Foxcliff during covid. He passed away on St Stephen’s Day 2024, with the five sisters now taking the difficult decision to sell, yet keeping other links to Schull.

In great order, with a stone-paved roof terrace on top of the stone-faced garage, Foxcliff is set rock-solid on its site, chosen for its vista, and with lots of its stone paving and paths provided gratis of its, eh, explosive origins.

Foxcliff is listed with a €1.25m AMV via Colm Cleary, of Schull’s James Lyons O’Keeffe agency.

With intentionally low-maintenance grounds of a few acres (mainly natural vegetation), Mr Cleary says it has exceptional views, generous open-plan living spaces, and lots of light, while it is in superb condition and is as suitable for year-round living as for sunny summers.

VERDICT: Schull harbour-mouth site was chosen with surgical precision and built with blasted determination.