Beckett's birthplace sold for £850,000

THE house where the writer Samuel Beckett was born was sold yesterday at auction for £850,000 more than double the price it made in 1989.

There were four bidders for the mock Tudor house Cooldrinagh, on Brighton Road, Foxrock, Dublin 18 at a crowded auction room when bidding opened at £500,000. It was eventually knocked down to the estate agent Mr Sean Davin, who was acting for an Irish businessman based overseas. The price is the highest paid at auction for a house in Foxrock.

The auctioneers, Lisney, originally expected around £600,000 when the house came on the market earlier this month. They later issued a higher guide price because of the interest in the house and its connections with Beckett, who won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1969. He died in Paris 20 years later.

Beckett was born in Cooldrinagh in 1906, three years after it was built by his father, William Beckett, a quantity surveyor.

The house has been lavishly redecorated in recent years. It has three reception rooms and an outdoor swimming pool and stands on an acre of grounds at the corner of Brighton Road and Kerrymount Avenue.

Meanwhile, a six bedroom Victorian house at 67 Merrion Road, Ballsbridge, Dublin 4, was auctioned for £600,000. Lisney had quoted a guide price of between £400,000 and £450,000 for the house, which has a half acre garden backing on to the RDS.