Noel Browne's happy family home

CONNEMARA: €250,000:An Edwardian home in Dartry and a Strain-built house in Glasnevin are amongst houses on view at the weekend. Frances O'Rourke reports

SUSAN Browne, daughter of the late Dr Noel Browne and his wife, Phyllis, has idyllic memories of the thatched Connemara cottage by the sea that was their family home for 38 years.

Controversial politician Browne and his wife holidayed in Cloughmore, Ballinahown, Co Galway for years before they bought a cottage there. Susan remembers “having picnics on the shore, lighting a turf fire and cooking bacon and eggs for the little ones who were patiently taught to swim by their grandfather”. Dr Browne (centre right) was famous as the minister for health who introduced mass screening for TB and who became embroiled in a row over his Mother and Child health scheme.

The Brownes bought the cottage in the 1970s and lived there full time from the 1980s. Susan, who now lives in Malta, says her parents would return from the shore to the cottage in the evening “to eat home-made blackberry tart and scones, which you could smell as you walked in the door.”

Dr Browne died in 1997, and his wife in 2007, and although the family loves the place that has many happy memories, they are putting it up for sale for €250,000. Susan has used it as an Irish holiday home until very recently.

Cloughmore South consists of a traditional whitewashed cottage with two loft bedrooms and one on the ground floor. There’s a small kitchen, shower and toilet on the ground floor and central heating – but the original open fireplace with its crane remains.

A smaller, cute, whitewashed guest cottage, Little Cro, is included in the sale – this has a kitchen/living room, fireplace, bathroom and loft bedroom.It is for sale through agent Paddy Flynn of Galway Real Estate.