‘Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer.” Officially, that is. Sadly, the weather in Ireland rarely lives up to Shakespearian grandiloquence and is quite capable of delivering a gale-force tempest to disrupt a midsummer night’s dream.
After a seemingly interminable period of meteorological misery, when the sun finally comes out there’s nowhere we’d rather be than beside the seaside.
There are people who spend a lifetime criss-crossing the world – from the Aegean to the Caribbean – hoping to find the perfect, unspoilt beach. But sometimes the Holy Grail lies just around the corner.
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A stunning beach is the crowning glory of Seafield House – on 60 acres – at Three Mile Water, Co Wicklow.
Former home of the late Tom Delahunt, a prominent Co Wicklow businessman who died in 2010, it is on the market through agents Colliers for €1.6 million in a private treaty sale.
Many coastal properties boast about beach access but this one has the ultimate luxury – frontage onto a sweeping stretch of pristine, golden sand backed by extensive, serried ranks of private sand dunes.
It is just a short drive from the M11, Rathnew village and Wicklow town, and is accessed via a tree-lined driveway leading to two interconnecting, charming stone courtyards with outbuildings, stables, garaging, a boathouse and oodles of potential guest accommodation.
Minimal work needed
The five-bed light-filled, early 19th century house has 279sq m (3,000 sq ft) of accommodation and it still has a working set of servants' bells.
A spacious entrance hall leads to three bay-windowed reception rooms (a drawing room on the left and, to the right, a living room with French windows leading to a paved terrace and double doors into a dining room) and a large country kitchen.
Upstairs, the main bedroom has a spacious en suite while the other four share a bathroom.
The house is decorated throughout in neutral paintwork and carpeting and is in pretty much turn-key condition. New owners will have very little work to do except modernise the kitchen and possibly convert one of the smaller bedrooms to add an extra bathroom.
Seafield House is being sold with 60 acres. The courtyards and gardens (including an orchard and a hedged-off area that could be reconverted to its former use as a tennis court) comprise three acres; and there are 17 acres of what the agent describes as “excellent quality arable land”. But the main attraction is 40 acres of sand dunes and a quarter-of-a-mile long beach.
The beach is, frankly, sensational. Here is a little paradise for walkers, beachcombers, castaways, children and bathers.
You have to pinch yourself out of a Robinson Crusoe reverie to remember that Dublin – and not Dominica – is just half-an-hour away. The only chance of your solitude being disturbed – and Man Friday turning up – would be a Welsh or Wicklow canoeist getting blown radically off-course, because there is no public access to the beach across the property.
Seafield House would make a great family home and is close to schools and amenities in Wicklow and Arklow; there is a choice of harbours for sailing and fishing; and golf at Blainroe.
The Garden of Ireland hinterland has multiple attractions from Avoca to Glendalough. Commuting to and from Dublin is also feasible.
Anyone afflicted by what poet John Masefield called "sea fever" and who needs to live by the "lonely sea and the sky" will struggle to find a more idyllic location.
Homes by the beach: three to buy
Apartment 4H, Inchydoney Apartments, Inchydoney,
Clonakilty, Co Cork
Sherry FitzGerald O'Neill, €195,000
Two-bedroom, first-floor apartment with patio overlooking Lady's Beach – one of the best beaches in west Cork. The apartment is part of the Inchydoney Hotel complex.
Orchard, 17b Claremont Road, Howth, Co Dublin
Savills,€1.25 million
Four-bed detached house on a 0.6 acre site with unobstructed views over the Irish Sea, Ireland's Eye and Lambay Island and access to Claremont
Beach.
Seafort, Bantry Bay,
Bantry, Co Cork
Michael H Daniels, €950,000
Five-bed detached house, about 1.6km south of Bantry town, at the waters' edge overlooking a sheltered, wooded inlet. Built in 2004, all the main rooms face to the south and west with views to Whiddy Island and Bantry Bay.
