Seduced by city centre redbricks but the price wasn't right

HOUSE HUNTER: Two period houses in Portobello really got us going but, while out of our price range, there were worth the look…

HOUSE HUNTER:Two period houses in Portobello really got us going but, while out of our price range, there were worth the look, writes DON MORGAN

WHEN I WAS in my mid-twenties, I used to live in Dublin city centre. It was a head-turning, stomach-churning two-year adventure where no day was the same. For every day where I was repulsed by the ugliness of life in the capital, I got to see the hidden treasures that not even the boom could force to be bulldozed for a shopping centre: Henrietta Street, the Blessington Street Basin, Saturday afternoons in the Cobblestone pub, and, Portobello.

Portobello’s character has been in flux since the Jewish quarter of Dublin was emptied of its population, replaced by newcomers, many from abroad, some assorted trendies, all changes being observed by those Dubs born and raised there.

I lived there for a year of my life and I miss it most of the time. That’s the Dublin of my bitter little heart. First of all, let’s set the tone. We’d had a hard week at work and looking at houses was like having our fingernails pulled. We had organised viewings for two homes in Portobello, and really there was no point in even going to see them, other than to satisfy curiosity.

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Besides, we had to get back to Carlow sooner or later to be exhausted and watch yet another omnibus of Law and Order on the telly. Both houses were also out of our price range. As it turned out, they were a hit. One, my wife was mad about. The other held my affections.

When I was asking my wife what she liked so much about the first house, the words were scrambling to escape her mouth: it was a period redbrick, but it was so well maintained, the steps leading up to the door, conserved and restored shutters, conserved and restored tiled floor in the entrance hall, gorgeous return on the stairs and an incredible use of space. At the top of the stairs was a cupboard, integrated into the wall. When closed, it was practically invisible. It was as if the owners had been inspired to restore an early Victorian building using the blueprints of the Batcave. The kitchen had the best of everything. And not a single thing out of place. Even now my wife uses it as her benchmark. It was the business.

That’s not even accounting for decor; the sumptuous velvet curtains in the livingroom that would scandalise the ladies in Hickey’s. White walls and dark furnishings. The livingroom was a modern twist on a Regency pastiche, and even I was caught drooling over the built-in bookcases, on either side of the chimney breast. Even when it comes to decor I’m a nerd. Nothing like a good bookcase to get me going, I’m afraid. Why don’t we show off our books more in our good rooms? It’s one of the great mysteries of the Irish home to me. Admittedly, the garden was a bit small, but what a house.

My preferred domicile was not as big as that championed by my wife. It wasn’t to the same spec either, was cosier, both in size and in style, more Silas Marner than Sex and The City. And it was comparatively expensive for what is essentially a cottage. A redbricked, gorgeous cottage, but nonetheless, not much more than that. It had two things, though, that I absolutely adored. First, it was right on the canal, just opposite Cathal Brugha Barracks at Rathmines. The other thing it had, which the other house didn’t, was a wooden porch, exquisitely ornate, like a double-jobbing gazebo with rambling roses clambering all over the doorway. How pretty is that? How much of a girl am I?

Out of our price range, like I say, but worth the look. The first house has become the touchstone for our dream house.

Inexplicably, I want to keep geese. If you’re stuck in traffic on your way in to Dublin along the Grand Canal, look across, you can’t miss it. Imagine swans taking off outside it from the water. Heaven.