Island homes offer refuge to dreamers, but at a price

Island-dreamers with healthy savings accounts have a choice of two properties for sale this month. Horse Island, in Roaring Water Bay off the coast of Co Cork, is for sale with James Lyons O'Keefe with a price tag of £6 million. One of Carbery's famous Hundred Isles, Horse Island is two miles out from Schull and directly opposite Rosbrin Cove. Everything on the 160 acre island, currently owned by a German businessman, is included, from seven fully-equipped houses to a high-tech gymnasium. An eighth house is now derelict and there is a quaint shipwreck house designed by a young German visitor which children will love. The agent believes the island will suit as either a holiday home, corporate entertainment venue or as a yacht charter and deep sea angling base. Horse Island has had a chequered history since the last of the McCarthys left for the mainland in the 1960s, with a notorious arms dealer numbered among its former residents. The present owners built the seven houses over the past 10 years, marketing them in Germany as exclusive holiday rentals. The interiors are fashionably minimalist and have a marine flavour, with boat-shaped beds and tiled floors. Remnants of the McCarthy cottages can still be seen at the eastern end of the island. There are a number of sandy "Treasure Island" coves around the island, a quay and slipway and a helicopter pad which is useful for emergencies. Cattle graze on the open land, which the agent believes would make an excellent golf course. Inishturkbeg Island in Clew Bay, Co Mayo, is for sale with Dominick J Daly, with an asking price of £900,000. This 63acre island lies approximately a mile off the coast of Claggan, a parish bordering on Westport. It is one of the largest of the inshore islands at the eastern end of Clew Bay and one of the few still inhabited. There are sensational views south over Croagh Patrick and the Nephin Mountains to the north.

The freehold of Inishturkbeg includes all equipment and machinery essential to basic functioning on the island, such as small boats, a tractor, farm machinery and some electricity-generating equipment. Two houses are included, one a modern four-bedroom house and the other a traditional whitewashed cottage on the pier. The island has a completely self-sufficient water and electricity supply and the infrastructure is good, with a 300-yard concrete road, a boat slip and a recently renovated 19th century stone pier. 12,000 deciduous trees create a pleasant woodland setting not often found on Ireland's windswept offshore islands.

The main house, at the south of the island, has a 43 ft glassfronted sitting area which faces due south, has a built-in Jacuzzi and a breakfast counter. There is a huge pine kitchen, a sittingroom, bedroom and a bathroom on the ground floor. Wooden stairs lead to the first floor, which is completely timber clad and fitted out as a large open-plan office. The pretty cottage on the pier has been extended to provide a big country kitchen, a sittingroom with a stone fireplace and two double bedrooms.

The water supply is from rainwater collected from the roofs of buildings and running water close to the pier and a windmill supplemented by solar panels provide all the electricity supply.