Light and bright West Cork home presents many windows of opportunity

West Cork dormer maximises light, says Tommy Barker

Kilfinnan, Glandore

Glandore, West Cork
€750,000
Size	186 sq m (2,005 sq ft)
Bedrooms	3
Bathrooms	5
BER	B

The owner of this Glandore one-off home won’t forget the inauspicious month she finished its build: Sept 2008, the month the world’s banking systems (and Ireland’s property market) went to hell in a handbasket... thanks to the Lehmann Brothers bank going to the wall due to the US’s sub-prime lending crisis.

That Sept 15 moment and its repercussion made the timing of the move here to Kilfinnan momentous. But, 18 years on, it’s a distant memory and has, in any case, been overlaid with many, many happy memories for the woman of this house here, now selling to downsize.

Scroll back some 20 years and “I was in the neighbourhood, and fell in love with the scenery around Glandore,” says the woman who made this her permanent home, knowing it would be perfect too for visits for her adult children, now living in the US. Now, “downsizing is my intention, it’s too big for my needs” and a move to the sunny South-East seems on the cards.

Selling on her behalf is Niamh Moloney, of Sherry FitzGerald O’Neill, who listed the 2,005sq ft, three-bed detached dormer home (it has lots of glazing quirks, including apex roof windows) with a summer €750,000 AMV: viewings are ongoing into early autumn at this back-road Kilfinnan address, just off the main Rosscarbery-to-Glandore Road, near Drombeg and Prison Cove.

Hitting a B BER, the house was done by a good local builder to plans by a good architect, and is on a nicely matured site on a gentle bend in the road, with some relatively near neighbours, so it’s not remote in feel.

Despite its size, it’s only got three bedrooms, all en suite: One, at ground level off a large inner hall, also serves as a library/home office, while the two first-floor ones are generous in size and double aspect, with views to the mouth of Glandore harbour, best from the gable door to a small first-floor balcony (in one in particular).

Kilfinnan, Glandore

Back at ground is a large, triple-aspect sitting room, plus a spacious kitchen/dining room with island with granite tops and vaulted ceiling with roof light, with a utility and guest WC.

Notably, there’s internal/external access from the utility, front door, and from three sets of double doors; one in the kitchen/dining, across the patio from a set in the sitting room, and a third set in the far-distant bedroom/home office.

Overall condition is excellent, with bright interiors and neutral decor, on well-kept grounds that include a glass house and detached garage.

The Kilfinnan townland address is south/east of Glandore’s pier and bars and eateries, and the Price Register shows two remarkable sales here: The hideaway Tir na nÓg, in 2024, at €2.25m, and Kilfinnan Castle, a few fields away and right on the water at €5.73m in 2019, but which made an even higher sum when its land value is added in.

VERDICT: Back when this one-off coastal home was built on the fringes of West Cork’s scenic property hot-spot Glandore, Celtic Tiger times seemingly dictated huge builds and lots of bedrooms, extravagant features, and bubbling baths, bells, and whistles. Not so here, where sensible restraint was the order of the day.