After a decade of happiness in west Cork, biographer Victoria Glendinning has decided to sell her Irish home outside Skibbereen. Coolnaclehy, a four-bedroom farmhouse, stands at the end of a very private boreen on some three and a half acres of garden and woodland bordered by the River Ilen. It is for sale through Skibbereen agent Charles McCarthy at £350,000.
The site also has its own island in the middle of the river, where picnics take place during the summer and the waters are seemingly warm enough to allow swimming. The main property is a 500-year-old cottage, extended by the addition of a very large conservatory and the conversion of an adjoining barn into a generous space capable of a variety of uses. There is also a separate guest apartment as well as a number of outbuildings.
Some of this work was undertaken by the previous owner, who was an artist. Some 10 years ago, Ms Glendinning, then married to former Irish Times literary editor Terence de Vere White, came across the house while she was researching a biography of 19th century novelist Anthony Trollope (who had worked for the Irish postal service). Although not terribly familiar with Ireland before then, her travels took her to almost every county and, she says, "Cork looked wonderful".
She and her husband called to an estate agent in Clonakilty who told them that Collnaclehy "wasn't everyone's house" and this, Ms Glendinning now explains, spurred her to examine the property. Her first sight of the place "was on a really golden, sparkly day; the setting was just magical - the river, the garden, the woods - I hardly bothered looking at the house at all. I just thought, `this is it.' Nobody's ever bought somewhere more rashly." Rash or not, her impulse proved correct and the intervening years in west Cork have been filled with pleasure.
However, in 1994 her husband died and this inevitably meant a change in circumstances, particularly after she remarried two years later. "Life took on a different shape. Though I was always there for long summers, it wasn't like before. A house that's not regularly visited starts to feel neglected and I felt it wasn't fair to the place. Also I'm a gardener and when you're not there all the time, you're fooling yourself if you think this is proper gardening." For these reasons she realised the time had come to hand the house on to new owners. "It has been a very hard decision because I've made a lot of good friends here. But I can still come back and see them all."
Appropriately, over the fireplace in the dining-room is a large sign reading `Nothing is Forever.' "That was one of Terence's mantras," Ms Glendinning says. "It's a wonderful motto for life; excellent in either good or bad times. It was painted for us by a local sign-writer on an old bed-head. I shall be bringing it with me." She will also be taking away lots of pleasant memories of her time in west Cork. "It's a very happy house with a very strong character. I hope the next owner will be someone who'll love it as much as I have."
