Opportunity for artistic development in a literary field

Co Wicklow: €1mA four acre site in Kilcoole, Co Wicklow, which combines literary history with developmental potential, is for sale by private treaty, with Hassett seeking offers over €1m.

Sycamore Cottage, Ballydonarea, set in four acres behind Kilcoole village was home to author JP Donleavy and his first wife Valerie when he was writing The Ginger Man, the novel published in 1955 which has defined his life. Never out of print since, with 45 million copies sold, the book is reputedly set to become a film with its anti-hero Sebastian Dangerfield played by Johnny Depp.

Old black and white photographs of Donleavy in residence in Kilcoole, in the late 1940s, show a handsome man, dressed in sweater, jeans, shoes with no socks, sitting in his studio, where he also painted, at a desk covered in papers and manuscripts.

Other photographs capture his wife armed with a pail to fetch the milk at the end of the lane, and the author with friends in the front garden.

These were reproduced in his book J P Donleavy's Ireland: In All Her Sins and In Some of Her Graces. He sold the cottage in 1951.

JP Donleavy, now 80, was the castaway on Radio 4's Desert Island Discs this week and recalled his time in Kilcoole by invoking another Irish literary giant. Apparently Brendan Behan broke into the cottage one day when Donleavy was out, left a copy of The Borstal Boy, read the manuscript of The Ginger Man, made corrections in pencil and autographed his changes.

Donleavy says he was furious when he saw the disarray and the changes, but went on to say he duly adopted all Behan's suggestions.

Built during the 1800s, the cottage and its outbuildings are in the corner of one of two fields, each of two acres.

It was let as a holiday home for many years until vandalised 25 years ago. It has been derelict ever since with the land used for agriculture and grazing.

The cottage is a five minute walk to the village on the sea side, and a mile from the beach at Kilcoole. Greystones is three miles away.