Starter Homes

Number 42 Clanranald Road, Donnycarney, Dublin 9, is the kind of local authority property known as a "parlour house", says Brian Caulfield of GWD, who expects it to sell for around £105,000.

A 750 sq ft two-bedroom terraced house built in the late 1940s, it has gas-fired central heating and is mostly in original condition, although it will need considerable refurbishment. The downstairs consists of a parlour on the left of the front hall, and a large livingroom/diningroom at the back of the house, with the kitchen, including an understairs pantry, at one end. Both rooms have a tiled fireplace.

Upstairs, there are two double bedrooms, and a bathroom with a bath and lavatory but no wash-hand basin - the way they were originally built.

There is a long overgrown garden at the back, providing enough room for an extension. There is also a railed front garden.

Douglas Newman Good also has a two-bed mid-terraced property on Clanranald Road. Number 109 is for sale at £95,000 to £100,000, and is mostly in its original condition. There is a rear extension, which new owners might want to knock down. Like Number 42, it has two downstairs rooms.

Donnycarney is a neighbourhood of over 1,000 former local authority houses, all approximately the same generation as houses in Cabra, Crumlin, and Walkinstown.

"Old Donnycarney", built in 1931/1932 for tenant purchase, is a neighbourhood of a few hundred houses just to the left of the Malahide Road, at the junction with Collins Avenue. "New Donnycarney" consists of around 800 houses, built between 1947 and 1949, just to the right of the same junction. ("Old" Donnycarney's street names are Hazel, Holly, Oak and Elm, "New" Donnycarney streets are known locally as "the clans" because all street-names are preceded by "Clan".)

There are also close to 200 houses privately built in the 1930s by one of the Belton family at the end of Donnycarney Road. They are slightly larger and command higher prices than the corporation-built houses. (It is in one of these houses that Charles Haughey was reared.)

The exact address of houses on, or just off, Belton Park Road is a little contentious. Although they get the address "Donny carney" in Thom's Dublin Street Directory, one agent places them in Whitehall, Dublin 9, while another's address reads "off Collins Avenue, Dublin 9". It was apparently very important, at least to the first house owners, to preserve the distinction between their homes and the corporation houses.

The properties are still reasonably good value, at least in Dublin market terms. Prices run from around £100,000 to £125,000 for the ex-local authority properties, depending on their condition, and to what degree they have been modernised and refurbished. The Belton Park Road houses, which have over 1,000 sq ft of space, cost from about £140,000-plus.

Donnycarney is a pleasant, settled community, where prices have been a fraction more stable than in big local authority areas such as Cabra and Crumlin - even though Donnycarney is also about three miles from Dublin's city centre. It is, of course, northside Dublin, a few DART stops too far for southsiders who have made it as far as Ballybough and North Strand, and even Cabra, but who haven't really discovered Donnycarney as yet.

Agents report that demand is strong from first-time-buyers, usually from nearby, but also from more expensive areas such as Killester and Artane. Prices in these suburbs now start from around £150,000-plus for a three-bed semi.

Well-known landmarks in the area include the Parnell Park GAA club and Clontarf golf course. There are plenty of local shops, plus easy access to town via bus or DART. There is talk that the Killester DART station is to be moved to Collins Avenue East, near the Howth Road corner. It is a 15-minute walk to St Anne's Park, and not much further to Dollymount Strand.