Modern thatched cottage in Sligo's Glencar Valley packed with eye-catching interiors to rival mountain views

Irish Independent

5 days ago

Asking price: €695,000
Agent: DNG Flanagan Ford
​Never be afraid to try things. This is the advice Padraig Ward likes to give to his 10-year-old daughter Luci. It's especially true when it comes to the thatched Sligo home the primary schoolteacher shares with Luci and his wife, Dearbhaile Prior.
There was the time during Covid, when Ward and Prior took the notion of painting the outside bright orange, as if the postcard-friendly dwelling set in the Glencar Valley in front of the spectacular Kings Mountain, needed to be any more eye-catching.
'Let's just say it became a talking point of the locality and a landmark for giving directions – turn off after the orange house. Opinions were divided. Some people disliked it. We painted it twice again the following summer.'
Their thatched home is also a new enough notion, having been constructed circa 2010, although it looks like it was there forever. These days, the exterior is a more traditional limewash-style white, with red window shutters and a red door, but still manages to both stand out and blend in with the dramatic mountain scene behind.
That the house is visible from the road is thanks to groundworks Prior and Ward carried out when they bought the place back in 2015.
'We were living in Sligo town when we bought it,' Ward says. 'There was no groundwork or anything done around it, and the house couldn't even really be seen. We got a local lad, Willie McTiernan from McTiernan Brothers Plant Hire, and he did all the landscaping.
'We couldn't believe how it opened up the whole front of the house. We put in stone driveway all around the house, then finished off with a retaining wall and stuff like that. And he put in a lawn, all in a short space of time. So when we're up in the garden, we've got views both sides because we're in a valley. It's on the road over to Glencar Waterfall as well.'
If the outside is unusual, Prior and Ward have created a riotous feast for the eyes in an ever-changing interior, in which Ward – who is currently on a career break from teaching – says there is no guarantee any room in the house might be the same colour it was when you left it that morning, such is the enthusiasm of the pair for home improvements and decorating, as well rummaging in antique and curio shops.
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'When we moved in first, we had a table, chairs, a cot and a bed. That was about all we brought with us. From there, we just did it room by room.'
Their enthusiasm for the eclectic and colourful begins in the hallway, where a peacock fresco overlooks a colourful Persian rug, with a chandelier hanging overhead and a collection of antique furnishings to either side.
To the left of the 'hallway', the walls are broken up to offer an open-plan space that extends to a large living area. Immediately ahead is an opening into the dining area and kitchen, and to the left, a sunroom. 'We both love going to auctions and maybe coming away with the very thing somebody else wouldn't buy.'
To the right of the foyer is an inner hallway which leads to a separated part of the house that has two bedrooms and two bathrooms. Upstairs are a further three bedrooms and two bathrooms.
The kitchen/ dining area perfectly illustrates the couple's taste for the eclectic, where they have chosen to match an antique table bought from Sirr's Antiques with a set of chairs from EZ Living.
Dearbhaile says: 'Locally, we regularly visit the North West Hospice Shop on Quay Street in Sligo town, where we have bought a few pieces including the mirrored bedside lockers and chest of drawers in our bedrooms.
"Five minutes away, there is Mervyn Blanc's Yeats Country Antiques and our most recent purchase from there is the beautiful chest of drawers in our upstairs guest bedroom. In Donegal, we purchased a Victorian sideboard and some wonderful mirrors from Lucy in The Parlour Shop, Killybegs.'
Among Ward's favourite pieces they have collected is an 18th-century grandfather clock. 'We bought it in Stewart's auctions (in Enniskillen, Co Fermanagh). It's an Irish, Georgian mahogany clock. It was made by George Pilkington, from Co Armagh, but that clock would have been made in the mid-1700s. It still chimes every hour and things like that. It's over 250 years old, and is still working perfectly.'
Ward's pride and joy is the indulgent downstairs bathroom, with its free-standing cast iron bath. 'I just think that room turned out well,' he says. 'It was cream in colour, and then we decided to paint it black, and we put up a sort of safari wallpaper. I just think the whole room works so well, and the colours work well.'
About a year ago, Ward and Prior's eye for the colourful paid off, when they began to take in guests through portals such as booking.com.
Ward says: 'We started last summer, and this year we are booked out. We're meeting people from all over the world and have got invites back to plenty of other countries because many of our guests [are] also doing accommodation in other parts of the world.' Now, these serial 'triers' want to try something else, perhaps a local renovation project.
'We'd love to take on a new challenge,' Prior says. 'So perhaps we'd look at buying a derelict cottage. We both love The Great House Revival on RTÉ with Hugh Wallace, so who knows what the future holds.
'As the sign beside our front door says, here is our Happy Place – but the three of us now want a new Happy Place.'
DNG Flanagan Ford seeks €695,000.