Gable-fronted Victorian on 1.3 acres once home to world's first female stockbroker

Irish Independent

a day ago

Asking price: €2.95m
Agent: Sherry FitzGerald [phone]
​'Sell in May and go away' has long been the seasonal steer from the stock trading floors. The mantra among portfolio managers and dealers in equities points to summer as the historically weak period for the market.
Not so for the property market though, with the early year sales season pushing on resolutely to the end of June and into July.
New to market, for example, is Trentham: a six-bedroom Victorian detached property on 1.3 acres which was, for a time, the family home of Oonah Keogh, the world's first female stockbroker.
The legendary Keogh's trailblazing legacy long ran under the radar, until her story was uncovered in Herstory: Ireland's Epic Women, a six-part documentary aired by RTÉ in 2020.
Oonah joined the Irish Stock Market as a licensed trader on the floor in 1925, making her the world's first female trader. She was living at Trentham when she achieved this – her family owned the house between 1915 and 1930.
Having studied art at London's Metropolitan School following a secondary education in Dublin's Alexandra College, and a period spent travelling, Keogh applied to be a member of the Dublin Stock Exchange, having been taught the mechanics of market trading by her father.
At the time, there was nothing in the constitution of the relatively new Irish Free State (which purported to guarantee equal rights for women) to bar her on gender grounds. However, she met with some resistance.
As Oonah possessed the requisite wealth, education and references (including one from a government minister), a seemingly reluctant stock exchange voted to accept her after considerable debate, and she remained a member for 14 years.
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It would be another 42 years until Muriel Siebert began trading on the New York Stock Exchange in 1967, becoming the world's second licensed female stockbroker.
Though she may have been treated as a professional equal under the constitution, socially it was a different story for Oonah Keogh.
'One of the disadvantages in those days was that women did not socialise with men in lounges of pubs,' she said in a 1971 interview. 'When the men retired to Jurys to relax after transacting business, I could not accompany them… And even when I went to the races with my father, it was the same. He would go to the bar for a drink, I would have to slip off for afternoon tea.'
Keogh also turned her hand to property development. After marrying ex-pat Russian architect and designer Bayan Giltsoff in 1933, the couple settled in England and went into building mock-Tudor houses, before moving back to Kilquade in Co Wicklow in the late 1940s, where they developed the distinctive housing scheme that became known as 'The Russian Village'.
These days, Trentham belongs to Mary Cummins and her businessman husband Paul, who have been there since 1991. The mostly granite built, gable-fronted house has almost 5,000 sq ft of living accommodation.
The couple were attracted by the regal frontage and the sheer amount of space inside.
Trentham was constructed by John Bentley of the Bentley brothers, one of the original ­developers of the Foxrock suburb.
'We redid the kitchen,' Cummins says. 'We re-plastered walls and put in new bathrooms, and we refurbished all the windows.
'We didn't carry out any big structural changes, but we did knock a wall from the kitchen to lead into the garden because there were pantries and what have you there.'
The improvements the Cumminses made to the house were supervised by architects Paul Brazil and Gillian Murphy.
As a result of the renovation, Cummins says the kitchen space is particularly suited to entertaining. 'The back of the house comes into its own in summer, while those at the front of the house have a cosiness about them in the winter.'
Some of her most treasured memories will be her and her husband's 40th birthday parties there, as well as daughter Ali's communion and 21st. 'Ali and her friends all loved to come back here on St Stephen's Day after the race meeting at Leopardstown,' Cummins says.
The facade of several gables of varying scale has a storm porch with a notable stained-glass panelled entrance.
On the ground floor is a guest ­bathroom, drawing room, dining room, back hallway, living room, conservatory and kitchen/ breakfast room. The main living rooms all have 12ft ceilings.
The conservatory has French doors connecting to a patio out back, as does the kitchen.
In the back garden is what they call the 'third garden', a sort of secret garden that was formerly the site of an outdoor swimming pool which now has a pond, rockery and patio area.
The former pool house now accommodates a toilet, wash hand basin and storage.
Upstairs, the master bedroom suite runs from the back to the front of the house, with a dressing room and an en suite kitted out in marble, with a Villeroy & Boch bath.
There are three other bedrooms on this floor, with a fifth, en suite bedroom on the second floor. There is also a floored attic space with under-eaves storage, a detached garage and several sheds.
The family have already secured alternative accommodation in the neighbourhood. 'I will definitely miss the space,' says Cummins.
Sherry FitzGerald will take stock of an offer of €2.95m for this home with history.