Don’t Be Poor, Buy Dublin’s Most Expensive House – A SNIP at €8.5m

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By Nicole Buckler

Darling, if you would ever stop being so poor, you could buy this romantic castellated mansion. Just work a bit harder and soon you will be rich enough to avoid paying taxes, and living at this address. Stop being povo and start living!

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Called “Inniscorrig,” this house sits on Coliemore Road in Dalkey. The house now takes the position as Dublin’s most expensive home. I wonder if this makes Bono and Enya cry into their money.

Not only is this the most pricey address, it has its own working harbour. (Well “working” is used loosely; anyone who owns this house isn’t doing any real work. Let’s face it, fishing trawlers aren’t leaving this harbour at 4am.)

The working harbour is one of only two in private hands in Dublin and provides direct sea access. So where is the other one? And can one’s servants harpoon seals from it too?)

Breathes the real estate agent, “Inside there is a real connection to the waterside position with magical sea views from all the principal rooms.” And by magical do they mean in the way tax bills decrease the richer you get?

The house is advertised as being close to the DART, like people who live in this house would actually get public transport with the peasants. How quaint. But it is close to Dalkey Village, where you can bump into Bono and his wife, and Enya, when she isn’t hiding in the bushes because she hates people. You say recluse, I say let her sail, let her sail, let her sail to wherever there is a tax haven of her choice.

19ef4d80-8223-451d-98a5-4560ed6084ba_l 20fe0606-098f-4fea-bd65-00901b801141_l 65d8db9e-c469-42d7-b219-7c4cdf81c36b_l 82c33042-a57e-4be6-8dd2-ede8fdf8b326_lFrom your drawing room/receiving room/whatever posh rooms are called these days, you can see Dun Laoghaire, Howth Peninsula, and Dalkey Island. There are wild herds of goats on Dalkey Island, and you could possibly send your butler over to catch one for dinner, or both of your butlers if the first is incompetent. You also need to have your kitchen staff at the notice, ready to shoot the peasants. I mean pheasants.

The house also looks over the Muglins. While the Muglins sound like a post-graduate school of Hogwarts, they are actually rocks to the east of Dalkey Island. They are a danger to shipping and have been fitted with a distinctive beacon. It’s good to have a view over these places, you can watch for pirates coming into the harbour to steal your gold. But of course, your “private banker” has already hidden your funds in one of the 80+ tax haven across the globe. Those silly pirates. It serves them right for being poor. Silly poor people!

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Inniscorrig was built circa 1847 by the renowned Dublin physician Sir Dominic Corrigan, who first diagnosed the heart condition now known as “Corrigan’s Pulse.” We like people getting rich helping people to not have Corrigan’s Pulse. This dude built Inniscorrig as a summer retreat. In Ireland, summer is a whole 2 months. So where was his other residence? Who knows? Probably somewhere where people don’t have Corrigan’s Pulse.

Corrigan actually seemed like a good egg. I have never met him; I’m just going by Wikipedia… which is not always a vessel of all truths. But as it turns out, he was the son of an agricultural tools maker, so he had fairly humble beginnings. He set up a general practice in Dublin, and then went on to working with the poor alongside treating private (probably coughing) patients. He spent time in the Sick Poor Institute, the Charitable Infirmary Jervis Street, and the House of Industry Hospitals. His work with many of Dublin’s poorest inhabitants led to him specialising in diseases of the heart and lungs, and he lectured and published extensively on the subject. He was known as a very hard-working physician, especially during the Famine. So we like him for now, until fresh information comes out, as it always does.

While he did a lot of work for the poor, he did manage to annoy the bejesus out of them with his support for temperance and Sunday closing of pubs. Okay so I don’t like him anymore.

But most interestingly, he was the private doctor to British royalty when they visited Ireland. This man probably saw more royal people in their bloomers than anyone else in the country. Which was probably not a good thing; they were all damn ugly and more.

0853fd1e-5419-4d1d-b407-343990265b21_l Because of his connection with the royal bloomers, prominent guests to his gaff included Kings Edward VII and George V of England. The visits were commemorated by a crown and star set in pebbles into the patio terraces on either side of the front door along with elaborate plasterwork motifs throughout. Corrigan, himself, is commemorated in a granite bust over the front door. And everyone strides to have a good bust.

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In 1846 Corrigan’s application to become a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland was blocked. In 1855 he got around this opposition by sitting the college’s entrance exam with the newly qualified doctors. He became a fellow in 1856, and in 1859 was elected president, the first Catholic to hold the position.

He had six kids, and eventually died of a stroke, and probably had Corrigan’s Pulse himself. Anyway those six kids probably had a great time throwing rocks at the seals in their private harbour.

The garden around the house is the usual fancy-pants type: however these gardens protect a further ‘secret garden.’ Well the term ‘secret garden’ is used loosely in these days of the spy drone. Don’t think you’ll be sunbathing in the nuddy here. Your nudes will be on the web in under an hour.

This gaff even has a boat house, like people actually use boats anymore, other than the Stena Line. But the good news is that the boat house has a bar and a toilet in it for when your lunatic teenagers have a giant party and gards are called to get naked drunk people away from innocent seals.

Anyway, if you are a rich non-tax paying person, you should buy this house. Drones will probably be there to welcome you.

 

Update: The house sold last year to an Irish family. The price had dropped before the sale, so it is now no longer considered the most expensive home. Viva la real estate!

 

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