You could be on the top deck of an ocean cruiser when standing at the wide bow window of Kinsale’s Joaney’s Garden — the top tier setting is as elevated, the expansive views over a 180° panorama are over water and of boats, whilst the neighbourhood is pretty much first-class all the way too.
And, the selling agent with a family link to the 30-plus-year-old timeless looking Victorian villa-style home with its €2.2m price tag also expects her viewers and the eventual buyer to hove to from overseas, with interest expected from the US as a primary upper-end Kinsale market profile, as well as the UK and Europe.
With the deepening crisis in the Gulf, she can also expect inquiries from ex-pats and others currently living in the Middle East? “Ireland is such a safe country to buy into, and believe it or not, lots of international buyers like our climate, it’s not extreme,” says second-generation auctioneer Johanna Murphy.
Her client and vendor at Joaney’s Garden is retired Kinsale auctioneer Victoria Murphy who came to these shores herself in the 1960s from South Africa.
Later, Victoria’s brother Richard Rainey followed in her tracks, setting up a successful architectural practice in Kinsale, and it was he who designed this one-off, ‘upside down’ house on a challenging site, where the reward for engineering and construction challenges was the views as the site (now 0.75 of an acre) drops away from the immediate grounds to leave little but an unobstructed vista.
“This property now includes all the ground in front (0.75 acre,) so nothing can ever be built in front of it,” Ms Murphy says of this spring 2026 listing at €2.2m for this quite ageless 250sq m/2,675sq ft four-bed one-off.
Joaney’s Garden was previously launched on the market back in summer 2023 with an even €3m price tag: now, at €2.2m, “it’s cheap for Kinsale, especially for a place with a view as good as this,” the agent says, pointing to the likes of former county council homes in Ardbrack selling for €1.3m to €2m, and with seven very large new villas at the Cumnor convent site expected to come to market later this year at €5m to €6m.
The high sums select Kinsale listings can and do get was evidenced just last month when Sandycove’s Sprayfield Cottage showed as an off-market sale at €3.176m, likely to have been acquired by US billionaire James Berwind to add to his Sandycove cluster: it bounds the original, Georgian villa Sprayfield which he largely demolished last year to rebuild, having paid €4.75m for it in 2023.
Since, whirlwind Berwind has added a cottage at Sandycove to his Kinsale/Sandycove portfolio at €2.28m , as well as Valley House next to it by the cliff walk in Sandycove for €4.99m, Seaspray in Scilly for €5.5m, plus a farm at Ballinspittle. Now, he gets some farm barns and outbuildings with the €3.176m Sprayfield Cottage plus another access point to his first foray, Sprayfield, where rebuilding costs which include a leisure centre are also well in the multi-million euro league.
So, yes, as if it needed repeating, Kinsale is different.
Joaney’s Garden will appeal to security conscious well-heeled travellers, whether arriving by private yacht or by air, with Cork airport 30 minutes away and the Castlepark marina (where Berwind berths his c €70m superyacht — Scout), in full view of hill-hugging Joaney’s Garden, and vice versa.
While extravagantly finished inside with antiques, art and swagged curtains and rich wallpapers, the house is traditional in its exterior demeanor with natural slate roof, some painted banded render, stone and slate, and is built timber-frame over a massed concrete base, with its entry point just below the road at Compass Hill.
Its main living quarters (plus one bedroom) are at the upper entry level and downstairs are three further bedrooms, two with bathrooms.
