This Phibsboro cottage for €525,000 has it all

Vendors Mark and Lucy are selling a house they “came upon by chance” and now love so much that parting is indeed sweet sorrow. “We’d almost given up when I saw it by accident,” Mark says, “then had a really good feeling as soon as I stepped inside. It was nicely lived in and well maintained and bigger than expected”.

It’s even bigger now, with a bright kitchen/living area added where there used be a lean-to, a guest bedroom and bathroom in what was once an inner lobby and a paved and planted rear garden with a utility shed – complete down to the ironing board. They’ve also restored and made new the 15ft-high drawingroom, taken away a wall and installed steps from there to the living space, exposed the original brick chimney breast and made a feature of original doors.

All of this “took a year,” Lucy says, “longer than we intended. We spent more too, but we’re delighted with it now”. Leaving is a wrench, but there are family reasons. They bought in 2015, when they paid €365,000. “Expensive at the time,” they agree, “but we were desperate”. They’ve never regretted buying. “We’ve such happy memories of living here,” Mark says.

Number 32 has had far more desperate occupants than Mark and Lucy. In the years after Easter 1916, then owners Seamus and Kitty O'Doherty made 32 a meeting place and safe house for Éamon de Valera and Michael Collins. Bullet holes from a failed assassination attempt are still visible in the adjoining house.

Agent Moovingo is seeking €525,000. The floor space measures 109sq m (1,173sq ft) and the rear garden is 92sq m (1,000sq ft) with vehicular access from a private laneway – a rare bonus.

The open kitchen/living area has a range of interesting, palest grey fittings by Aloco of East Wall and a parquet floor. Architect Brenda Carroll went for a long, deep skylight and used every inch of space. The exposed brick chimney breast has a multi-burning stove, "installed just in time for the Beast from the East!"

There is a particularly fine ceiling rose in the drawingroom ceiling, original floorboards, a black marble fireplace and working shutters on the sash window. The main, sea-green painted bedroom is to the front with lots of fitted wardrobes; the second, now used by six-month-old Isla, is to the rear. There is attic storage.

The Property Price Register indicates that numbers 9 and 72 Connaught Street sold in 2016 for €347,000 and €350,000 respectively.