Name: Máiréad Robinson Address: Blackwater, Kenmare, Co Kerry Dwelling: Renovated schoolhouse Here since: 1992
We bought this old schoolhouse in 1992. It was totally derelict at the time; it had been left empty for 20 years. It's about 150 years old, but schools like this - and there were lots of them, where people would have walked to school across the fields - were all closed down in the mid-1970s. We had to bore a well and put in electricity. There are huge cornerstones on the house, and the walls are three feet thick. We exposed the original stonework, and we lowered the ceiling to fit in an upstairs. There were two rooms, the eastern and the western. At an early stage one was for boys and one was for girls; then, at other times, one was for the junior classes and the other for the more senior classes.
We've just finished another renovation. We were thinking about how to open up the house. Like all the schoolhouses, and many traditional Irish houses, they tend to be quite dark, and the windows are very small. The trend now is to bring the outside in. We replaced one wall with floor-to-ceiling glass. While before it had the tradition and the history to it, it didn't quite have the comfort and light it does now. It's a very nice, warm, open house now.
The renovation has been very careful; it still looks exactly the same from the road. Obviously, you have to be careful about these things. The glass wall is at the back of the house, away from the road, so you still have the basic integrity of the house.
Looking across from the western side, the side that's not seen from the road, we have this great unspoilt vista of mountains and river, and you can just about see Kenmare Bay. We built a patio outside the sun room, as we call it. It's a perfect mix of the traditional and the modern.
I grew up in south Co Dublin, and we had no family connection of any kind to the area, but I did a few summers here back in my youth. I thought Kenmare was a great town. There was always something special about it. We had a caravan here for a while - we came down for holidays - and, when we were in a position to buy something, we saw this and thought it would make a great project. Many of the neighbours actually went to school here. There's a very warm community, and they made me feel very welcome. With all these clusters of holiday homes around the country, it's nice to have people who are part of the community living here summer and winter.
I'm a food and travel writer - I run www.hotelreviewsireland.com - but I love coming home. This is just such a fabulous place to live. I've got great neighbours, and I've got a church on one side and a pub on the other. With the lovely scenery, I can't think what more you could ask for. Less rain, maybe, but even then, once the house is warm and bright, it doesn't matter at all looking out at the rain, as the colours are so wonderful. ...
In conversation with Davin O'Dwyer