Still a good time to buy a West Cork property, but don't wait too long
High-end: On the market since 2025 is Coolmain Castle, owned by the Disney family. It’s getting continuing international interest via joint agents Lisney Sotheby’s IR and Hodnett Forde, and carries a €7.5 million asking price.
Decades ago, it took outsiders’ eyes to see what was special about Co Cork’s property hotspots such as West Cork (a brand onto itself by now) and Kinsale … which in that harbour town’s case at this stage must be struggling to avoid putting up signs in the absolute prime locations stating ‘Locals need not apply'.
It’s been well documented how it was the Dutch, Germans, Swiss and English cast beady eyes and modestly bulging wallets on the south-west of Ireland’s coastline in the post-Cold War period, ratcheting up then from the 1960s as new arrivals came in waves: first artists, then crusties and other creatives in the 1980s, followed by monied folk — including native Irish who’d ‘done good’ from the 1990s onwards, owned a boat, and wanted to be seen out, about, afloat and strolling around places like Baltimore, Glandore and Schull in their lifejackets and shades.
