looking for unspoiled Ireland

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peach100

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Hello,
I've been receiving helpful information about purchasing a holiday home for personal use, and now it's time to find our little patch! We've spent time in and around Cork & West Cork and love it (but heck, can't afford it). We're about to look in Kerry, but we're completely open-minded about where else in Ireland to consider because it's all about the community and the landscape (hard to go wrong with the latter!).
Ideally, we wish to find somewhere that has a strong artistic/traditional craft/traditional music or food-based community (cheesemakers? fish smokers? farmers' markets?), somewhere not overrun with new builds, and somewhere we could find a little home that has not been modernised so that we can put our own stamp on the place. We'd be happy to consider village or rural locations (as long as they're near enough amenities).
Places I've read about in Kerry that look interesting are Annascaul, Ballyheigue and Portmagee. Various forum posters have also recommended Counties Leitrim, Wexford and Waterford, but nowhere specific.
We have a tiny budget to kick us off (would like to keep it under the 190,500 threshhold) and fix a place up/add on over time. Looking on daft and myhome it seems as though there are plenty of fixer-uppers out there, but we'd just like to hear what places you've fallen in love with, and where you would live if you just wanted a taste of the "good life". Many thanks!
 
Jenny, the most popular site here in Ireland for property searching is www.myhome.ie

You could start looking there and do a broad search under the county of your choice and then start to narrow it down
 
Thank you for your reply. We've spent many, many hours on the property sites, but they obviously don't give the the sort of personal perspective we're after (and the agents all say that everywhere is wonderful...hmm).

As I said, it's easy enough to find places listed in our price range, but since we're planning on making this a proper part-time home (hopefully to make it a full-time home some day) we really want to find somewhere we'll be happy, and therefore want a steer on places that haven't been overbuilt and that still have a traditional feel - some old world charm that seems fast disappearing. If you have any insight, we'd love to hear it!

Thank you.
 
This depends upon your definition of unspoiled...... if you think it is the land of one hundred thousand welcomes then you may be in for a surprise....chances are that no matter what corner of the country you go to you may encounter a language barrier in much of the service industry...and I don't mean the Irish language either!!

ninsaga
 
Not to worry, we may be dreamers but we're not completely naive. It's just that on our visits we have been rather suprised to see many otherwise lovely villages edged by a huge sprawl of identical new-builds and to hear stories of wonderful old pubs and other local businesses being pushed out because of rising rents (or temptation to sell up). We don't have any problem with progress, we'd just rather find somewhere where progress and preservation live nicely together.
 
Leitrim is a very rural county getting a name for itself as a retreat or somewhere where artists etc have set up.
 
annR said:
Leitrim is a very rural county getting a name for itself as a retreat or somewhere where artists etc have set up.
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The writer and playwright Michael Harding who lives in Leitrim wrote a few weeks ago in the Irish Indo that the qualities that brought himself and other artists to Leitrim in the past 5-10 years have now disappeared.
 
everyone is biased when it comes to selling their Irish county.

i imagine that transport would be a consideration - especially if you end up renovating and have to visit frequently. consequently, you may not want to stray too far from an airport (i am sure that you are familiar with the ryanair routes from london).

is proximity to the sea important?

perhaps you could list some of factors that you consider to be requirements for your irish home and this will help the posters here rule out certain areas..
 
Have been around this old country a few times and my favourite 'unspoiled' place that I have ever visited is the Mayo coast....Newport / Mulranny and on out to Achill... a bit remote but commutable from Knock International Airport (about 1.5 - 2 hrs)...
 
Interesting note about Leitrim - I'll check out the Harding article. Good point too about airports - we spent a lot of time debating this over the weekend, so this is now proved to limit our choices somewhat. So here goes:

- The airports we'd prefer to be near are Cork or Shannon (we need to fly from Heathrow or Gatwick). By "near", I mean within 1 1/2 to 2 hours driving radius.

- As above, an artsy or foodie place, or nearabouts. Can be downright quirky, but must be friendly and safe. We're big into the Slow Food movement and its philosophy (if that means anything to anyone), and we each work in creative fields.

- Near enough a village, or possibly even a village location itself. We don't want to be too remote because the house will be left vacant for long periods of time.

- Landscape is important, but it doesn't necessarily need to be by the sea (and premiums would likely disallow). Would like to be in reasonable driving distance of the sea, but would consider anywhere near breathtaking landscape. (Indeed, who wouldn't?)

- If it's somewhere that we could have a reasonable chance of letting for at least a few weeks per year, great. Not essential, but great.

- Somewhere we can find an old stone cottage in need of TLC, preferably with original features. For the right property, we'd be willing to put in quite a lot of TLC - but a full rebuild is not of interest. Can be absolutely minute, but would prefer if we could add-on over time.

- We don't have kids, so don't need child-friendly amusements, but have a lot of time for places where kids are a part of the community (as opposed to being left in front of a TV)

If it helps paint a picture, we visited Schull recently and there were many things we liked about it (artsy, nice food, amazing landscape) but there were also things we didn't like (too many 4x4s, getting way too posh, must be a nightmare in the summer). Actually liked things about Ballydehob more because it still felt local. Would like to find a place that is like what I imagine Schull to have been like 20-30 years ago. Quaint and charming but full of characters and renegades and near a nice bit of scenery.
 
You won't find much around for under €200k. You definitely won't get anything in west Cork. Kerry is nice and the South of the county would be more touristy but also more picturesque.
Here's a nice cottage near Killorglan: [broken link removed]=
It's near your budget and looks reasonable and you could fly Stanstead to Farranfore.

Another area that might be worth looking at is around Lough Derg. The Clare or Tipperary shores towards the south of the lake are lovely. Great amenities and close to Shannon Airport. Most of it is very unspoilt.

Coastal West Clare is nice as well but it's expensive.
 
Shanagarry in east cork - its got ballymaloe for the food and stephen pierce pottery for the art. wonderful beach too. very close to cork - about a 40min drive at most.
 
buckrodgers said:
Shanagarry in east cork - its got ballymaloe for the food and stephen pierce pottery for the art. wonderful beach too. very close to cork - about a 40min drive at most.
Click to expand...

i can second that too... you might pick up a fixeruper around there...
 
check out www.daft.ie and have a look in galway. North county galway, whilst not beautiful, is relatively inexpensive (you'll get something in your budget) and some nice villages and hopefully will have the western rail link soon. South county galway is prettier and probably more expensive. However from either end of county you should be able to get to galway city within 0-40 mins and on saturdays you can go to the farmers market, hit the second hand book stores, go for coffee or drinks and have a nice time. I find the villages and cities in ireland much nicer than the towns because i find in the towns it's harder to integrate with people and aren't that pretty - but thats only my opinion!!! you'd be near galway airport (not that many flights) but Shannon airport is not too far and the train/bus service to dublin is good. As with all places outside of the dublin, employment is the issue. All very well having a beautiful home at a good price and nice scenery if you can't get a job in the area or if you're commuting for a few hours each day. Anyway I recommend Galway!! ;)
 
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