Home pays homage to tradition in West Cork town that hosts 'Masters of Tradition' amongst other festivals
IF ever there was a home in tune with the festival ethos of its locality, it must be this one-off in triple-festival-blessed Bantry.
The house is suitably elevated above the town, at Seskin, for the best bay views.
Desperately seeking Seskin
'No detail has been left to chance; it really is a gem,' says estate agent Brendan Bowe, of this 1996-built home.
It integrates architectural salvage and a Georgian lodge flair in to its design and finishes to put a twist on one of Bantry's trio of summer celebrations, so it is, in its own, sweet way, a master of tradition, as per the Masters of Tradition music festival.
Sweet surrounds
Summer festivities, worth an impressive €5m per season to the local economy, kick off later this month (June 27 July 6) with the 30th anniversary West Cork Chamber Music Festival, which consists of 60 performances in 10 venues, from otherwise private settings to the impressive Bantry House, with its 300 years of history.
Keeping up with the Joneses? Better not try with venue Bantry House...
Pausing for breath for less than a week, Bantry follows with the week-long West Cork Literary Festival, which has been graced in the past by Booker Prize winners, as well as facilitating workshops for budding writers of all ages, with a now almost annual benediction from local resident, international celebrity, and best-selling author, Graham Norton.
Untraditional: local resident Graham Norton is almost a hardy annual at Bantry festivals
Then, after a break of a month, the vibrant cultural hub rekindles with the Masters of Tradition Irish music festival, from August 20-24.
Phew.
And here's just the place to enjoy future summers of music and words down in the town, in a home that itself is crying out for the adornment of an Irish harp, harpsichord, or a piano — its own forte is harking back to the past.
Now an executor sale, and having been in the one set of owners' hands since it was delivered in 1996, this is a home that's otherwise hard to date, such is the attention to detail and proportion.
It has a slate roof, weighted over six sliding sash windows and feature demi-lune gable windows, ornamental detailing, ceiling cornices and plasterwork, salvaged staircase and refinished old wood floors, plus fine fireplaces, including one thought to be a genuine Adam chimneypiece, in white marble with brass insert and another in pitch pine in the principal bedroom, one of four bedrooms, in a c 2,476 sq ft house.
Listed with a €850,000 price guide, its selling agent, Brendan Bowe, says that it is 'a property that was meticulously planned, detailed, and appointed by its original home owners, who fastidiously set about presenting a very interesting property, with many genuine Georgian period features, to deliver a home that is, quite simply, handsome and hypnotic'.
Mr Bowe highlights its gracious rooms, ornate plasterwork, wainscoting, fireplaces, Georgian fanlit door case with old brasses/ironmongery, plus further fanlight over an inner hall door, reclaimed slate roof, ornate fascias, and ochre-tinged lime harling or external render.
Make a grand entrance
It's set on the higher end of its 1.6 acre of grounds, all inside automated electric gates, which are useful, since staff to open up the gates to visiting charabancs and carriages can be in rather short supply at times like this, of full employment and high-minded festival fun.
VERDICT: A Regency timepiece, reinterpreted.
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I'm going to wear whatever the hell I want.' 'Obviously, it has nothing really to do with husbands and what they like or don't like,' she adds, confessing that her own husband Rory is 'frankly unsurprised and slightly amused by whatever I wear.' After 11 years of marriage, Scanlon reveals drily, 'he's used to me'. 'It's more about giving women permission to just do their own thing and saying, 'Don't ask permission because nobody's gonna give it to you. You've got to save yourself. Do the thing. Stop waiting to feel empowered enough to create. It might be s**t, you might fall flat on your face, it might be embarrassing. But what's the alternative? Sitting around, wishing and waiting?' Last year Scanlon got another project off the ground. Called Hot Messers, it's a community that meets up in person to walk and talk and engage in open and honest conversations. 'Last year, I travelled to The Himalayas with the breast cancer charity CoppaFeel!,' says Scanlon. 'Women in treatment, post-treatment and with stage four cancer were sharing the most amazing, heartbreaking, empowering stories with virtual strangers. It was as if they felt a freedom to share openly because they were walking alongside each other rather than sitting opposite someone. I love a bit of therapy, but I think sometimes that scenario can make people feel self-conscious.' The name riffs on the stereotype of the woman who's a hot mess or a car crash. 'She's messy and chaotic and that's fine. It's about taking control of that,' says Scanlon, because despite having 'a brilliant [online] community of like-minded women who are rowdy cheerleaders of each other', Scanlon admits social media can sometimes make her feel 'really disconnected from reality, isolated and quite weird, truthfully'. 'There's such massive value in getting people together in real life and hanging out in a group where you can skulk in the background or you can talk something out.' [ Anorexia, My Family & Me review: Heartbreak and hope as Angela Scanlon narrates stories of Irish families hijacked by eating disorders Opens in new window ] Although she might 'present as an extrovert', Scanlon says her personality isn't that cut and dried. 'When I'm on, I'm on, but I can be very antisocial, shy and awkward – if I have a baseball cap on, don't come near me. Sometimes I want to just hide behind my husband, but then the next minute I'm cracking out the jazz hands and everything's fine. There are two very different sides to me.'
