Sculptor-designed holiday cottage in his beloved Clare

Kinvara €229,000: THE HOLIDAY home of the late Eamon O'Doherty near Kinvara in Co Clare is on the market for €229,000.

The Derry-born artist, who died last August, was best known for his public sculptures such as the Anna Livia, Crann an Oir (outside the Central Bank) and the James Connolly memorial, as well as Galway Hookers in Galway’s Eyre Square. “He loved Clare,” says his widow Barbara Ó Brolcháin, “and the house has a magical quality. You are looking straight out to the Burren and the sea and the pier beyond.”

The couple bought the site in the mid-1980s. As Barbara says, “We wanted a place we could get to from Dublin, but it was more serendipity than planned that we decided on Clare.” Eamon, also a musician, loved Galway hooker boats, so the musical and maritime traditions of the area were strong draws for him.

Eamon’s design was a modern take on the vernacular style using local materials and craftsmen. While the house was being built in the 1990s, the O’Dohertys stayed in a mobile home with their children on the site “and we began to use bits of it as each part was complete.

When the roof went on it became a structure, and by the time the kids were teenagers it was a house,” says Barbara.

About three miles from Kinvara, Parkmore is a four-bed cottage extended to include a master bedroom and modern kitchen five years ago.

On a private half-acre site that is not overlooked, it is in walk-in condition, within walking distance of a shop and pub and the lovely Traught Blue Flag beach.

Making full use of the light and scenery around it, the house’s ground floor consists of a modern kitchen, sitting room, sunroom, utility room, guest toilet and bedroom. The first floor has three further bedrooms with one en-suite.

Kinvara, Co Clare

Description: Modern extended four-bed on private half-acre

Agent: Brian MacMahon DNG