Progress report: creating a new home

Planners of Kerry

Any local council has to manage the development and redevelopment of the housing stock. It is an essential component of modern living. A trip along many rural roads in Ireland will find a landscape littered with "pre-planning regime" bungalows that do little to acknowledge their context or their neighbours.

When those rural roads are in an area of outstanding beauty and topographical importance and the need to control development becomes an even higher priority.
Certainly in our part of West Kerry, diligent planning officers work hard to make sure that any development complies with the comprehensive guidelines created by the county council.

Although there are a few stunning examples to the contrary, the guidelines push design toward a very conservative, regional vernacular style. Our first planning application was refused and knocked back to us with reference to its design and scale  being inappropriate to the location and existing house.
In preparing our second application we downsized the proposal and removed the offending design elements, e.g. a first floor terrace, and added a couple of vernacular flourishes. It was clear that any idea of making a radical architectural statement was not on the cards. The decisions for the second application focused on defining the inside of the house. We  were looking to create rooms we would enjoy living in that also fitted the way we live now and anticipated our future needs and expectations.

From the outset the key element in the new layout was to locate the bedrooms on the ground floor and the "living" rooms  on the first floor. This arrangement "reveals" the view across Smerwick Harbour and, by introducing windows to the east side of the house, a view of Mount Brandon.

It was frustrating to have the second application also refused. Our reading of the given reasons, alongside the response of our architect, encouraged us to appeal the decision at national level.

Lodging the appeal in early March we were told not to expect a decision until September and that fewer than four out of ten appeals succeed. We were delighted to hear in late June that the appeal had been heard and we had been given permission to proceed, as submitted.

Now in early August we have a pack of documents ready to put the construction job out to tender. Let's hope we find a contractor who can offer a quote in the vicinity of our budget and who can start this year. Builders apply now!

Carrigeen as it is now

The front elevation of the permitted development

A ten day road trip that marks a beginning.

The recently acquired Audi earned its "rite de passage" with a road trip of close to 3,000km (see how european we are) with the car fully laden, including a stacked roof rack, almost every step of the way. The last time we owned an Audi we did barely 3,00km in a year.

Journey one, Saturday July 21st - Dublin to Beckenham via Holyhead.

Overall the trip was to oversee the removal of furniture from The Knoll and to complete the sale of the house. The first step was to get ourselves and our fancy "van" over to the UK. Before hopping on the boat to Holyhead on Saturday we had a fantastic Friday night with Bonnie Raitt, James Taylor and Paul Simon no less. Not a bad way to kick start a crazy ten days.

Once in Beckenham we identified everything we wanted to transport to Ireland, what would go in to store, and what we would dispose of. The "immediate transport" pile proved to be more than we could cram in the car, even with a roof rack, so we boxed things up and had them collected by TNT to deliver to Ballyferriter.

The removals firm arrived first thing on Tuesday and by 17.00 (how very european) the contents of the house was on its way to storage, most likely not to be seen again for 12 months. All in all a very smooth removal of furniture although... It's about 5pm and Sheila is resting on one of the beds we are leaving behind when I ask "did you empty the wash basket before the movers packed it up?" When she answers "No" we both have a good laugh as we try to remember what clothes (dirty) are now packed away for a year...

Tuesday evening sees us left with one sofa, two beds, a lamp, no dirty clothes and enough cleaning material to open our own Molly Maid franchise. 

Journey two, Wednesday July 25th - Beckenham to Fishguard.

Then, fully laden, we chose to return via the late night Fishguard to Rosslare ferry. We took our time to drive the 420km to the ferry terminal as we were booked on the 23.45 departure. 

Departing Beckenham three hours before schedule, and a clear M4/A40 to Fishguard means we are in Pembrokeshire early afternoon and 5 hours to kill. We treated ourselves to a super meal in St David's at a restaurant called St David's kitchen. If you ever find yourself at a loose end in that area we recommend a visit.

A fascinating addition to a cycle lane near the port at Fishguard. Investigating this further we decided that the photograph includes the full length of the designated cycle lane. No wonder they need a bench to rest on.

Journey three, Thursday July 26th - Rosslare to Ballyferriter.

The short, overnight trip docks at 04.00 and by 04.20 we were rolling along the highway at the start of the 340km trip to Ballyferriter. We fondly imagined stopping along the way for a leisurely breakfast but, with a fair day and nothing on the roads we found that we just kept rolling along. With little more than a fuel stop, we pulled in the drive of Carrigeen just five hours later. But that was not the end of our travels.

Journey four, Monday July 30th - Ballyferriter to Dublin.

Some of the "immediate transport" stuff was destined for Dublin, so off we went, car still packed, but not quite so full as before. The trip was not solely a delivery run as we had tickets see (and listen to) Graham Nash at the National Concert Hall on Thursday. This turned out to be the final gig os a six week tour and was a pleasant celebration of all things GN - the Hollies, CSN&Y and his solo work. Needless to say that the demographic of the audience meant that at the interval there was the unusual sight of a long queue for the men's toilets and none for the women's.

Journey five, Wednesday August 1st - return to Ballyferriter.

No roof rack, rear seats upright, we conclude the road trip. Along the way we hear that the sale has completed and we are done. We have moved from England to Ireland. Our life in England as we know it is over and a new adventure begins.

Carrigeen, Ballyferriter West - before...

From Dia Dhuit to Diamonds on the Soul of our Feet

The week began with Sheila starting her Irish classes at the local college and end with dancing in the Isles to Paul Simon. Average week then really. Sheila writes...

As you might remember Ballyferriter is located in an area called An Gaelteacht which means that Irish is the first official language. And most of the locals will speak in Irish to each other but English is also spoken, particularly when you look blankly at them when they say "Dia Dhiut". I thought it would be good to be able to have even the basics of conversation and certainly show intent on learning what is after all my native language.

I should say at this stage that I did Irish classes in school but like most of my education it went on over my head and little stayed in the brain. And so, at 9am on a beautiful bright sunny morning I head off for my first lesson of the week. By 6pm I am shattered, the brain is frazzled, and I can only nod a yes when himself asks me would I like a glass of wine.

There were 10 people in the class and we had the most brilliant teacher in Caitriona. A woman gifted with immense patience and who guided us through the whole week so that by the end, sure we were fluent. Well fluent in that we could say our names to each and say what lovely weather it was.

Himself had his official retirement do in London so did a flying trip over on Tuesday and back on Thursday. The evening part of it coincided with the semi-final of the world cup. In case anyone had their head in a bucket for last week that match involved England. Peter has no interest in the football however the three friends he was having a retirement meal with are ardent supporters. Once England made the semi-final a refined meal in a central London restaurant was changed into a BBQ at The Knoll with beers. In truth everyone was happy although the football result was not.

In the middle of all this we are hunting down kitchen and bathroom suppliers, talking to flooring installers, learning how a heat pump works, calculating the costs of underfloor heating and measuring up the tiles needed.


Friday saw us head to Dublin for the Paul Simon concert. This was billed as a farewell tour and he was supported by Bonnie Raitt and James Taylor.  I mean what a gig. Bonnie "greased the pan" for her two friends with fantastic guitar playing and singing.
James Taylor was amazing.

Paul Simon was fantastic and sang all the classic songs which, on a sunny Dublin evening, was wonderful.

The following morning, we headed off to Ballybunion for an evening of song from Christy Moore. Christy was in fine form, both singing and with his understated but spot on,political comments. It must be decades since I was in Ballybunion and I am hoping that it might be decades again… avoid at all costs.

The news for Sunday was that it rained! I know Ireland and all that, but we are in a drought, except in Kerry where it poured for most of Sunday.

First Week living in Ireland

And so the first week of living in Ireland permanently is over and we ask ourselves where did that go and how come we had not a minute to spare. How did we ever fit in time to go to work…?

We departed Beckenham at 7am on Saturday 30^th June and hit the road for Holyhead. It was a perfect day for a 7-hour journey, bright sunshine and only the occasional traffic issue. Our aim was to arrive on the island of Anglesey in time for lunch. We had seen a recent restaurant review of a place called The Marram Grass Café. It was a superb review and we thought sure why not let’s try it, https://www.themarramgrass.com/ and the food was absolutely sublime. Although the service was on the chill and casual side but definitely worth the wait.

We stayed overnight in the Dublin flat before hitting the road for Ballyferriter. The four hours of driving a fully laden car seemed to fly by and before long we were in The Kingdom, as native Kerry folk and the tourist industry are wont to call it. Sunday was nothing but relaxing as we looked to organise ourselves for this next stage of life.  This included a long walk on the nearby beach and a hop over to Ventry for a pint of the black stuff at Quinns.

Our first challenge was to prepare for our meeting with David Morarity, our architect. Now we have planning consent we need to move the remodelling of Carrigeen on to the next step, and that means making lots of decisions, materials, finishes, fittings, colours. We spent most of Monday and Tuesday pouring over all the Grand Design magazines and assorted kitchen and bathroom brochures that we had accumulated from the start of the project. Developing our “mood board” was a joy and great fun.

On Wednesday we had four hours of discussion with David that commenced with a bit of self-congratulating at winning the appeal and gaining an over rule of the local planning officer. ( We used “victory” quite a lot.)We moved on as quickly as possible to a redesign of the internal layout. The time spent living in the house and wondering whether we’d get permission to do the build, gave us a chance to rethink some aspects of the layout.  Besides the musings over where to put sockets, wall lights, we needed to make decisions about heating systems, window types, what flooring we might choose. This is all to prepare the “Tender pack”.

This next stage is to put together a detailed specification of the build so as to put it out to tender to contractors for quotes. We needed to include all the details of the elements that have an implication for the work. By being as certain and detailed as possible at this stage minimises the number of changes we look for

during the build. As David M pointed out, making changes now, on paper, costs nothing whereas making changes onsite, during the build will cost – time and money. We now have a fairly good idea of how it is all going to pan out and what it might look like. If we can find a contractor who is ready and willing, we could see the work start by October.

These three days felt like a real start to living in Ireland and having Ballyferriter West as the location of our main residence. Even though there is every chance that we will end up spending much of the next 12 months not living in the house as it is pulled apart and remodelled with the planned extension.

Planning Appeal Won!!! Building Project Begins

We have news… We won our appeal with An Bord Pleanala and so this warrants a note. An Bord Pleanala is the state planning authority and their word is God. Fiona Fair, our new best friend and clearly the greatest surveyor the world has seen, says “I disagree with the planning authority that the proposed extension and alterations to the host dwelling is unacceptable and incompatible in terms of design and scale and would constitute an incongruous feature in this scenic rural landscape”. And goes on to say, “I am of the opinion that the extension proposed is well considered and architecturally designed to a high standard”.

How right is she, we totally agree with her and it encouraged us to bring out the champagne. You can see the proposed extension and work here: https://www.facebook.com/DavidMoriartyandassocArchitects/ Scroll down to his post of 22^nd June for our house.

Many of you will know that we started this blog in France as mini postcards to two of our favourite people in the world, my Mum and Mary T. Sadly both are no longer with us and that made it very hard to continue writing the messages. However, a new chapter dawns and we are going to record the trials, joys, tears and challenges of a building renovation project here in West Kerry. I say this as a warning to anyone in case you want to duck out now!

Next step is to meet our architect to agree the building regulations specification but more importantly spend hours pouring over interior design magazines to choose floors, windows, kitchen and bathrooms.

Food Glorious Food

Sheila writes...Food glorious food isn't that how the song goes? Although I am thinking that Lionel Bart did not have Dingle in mind when he created that song.

But he should have because Dingle annually hosts one of Ireland's biggest food festival and 2017 sees the 10th anniversary of the festival.

Over 50 food stalls line the streets offering samples from local producers, restaurants and growers.

One of the central key concepts is the Food Trail. The idea is  that a visitor buys a book of ten tickets for €20 which you exchange at various stalls for a sample of their food or drinks. There is an amazing variety of drink choices all involving either d
Dingle Gin, Dingle Vodka or Dingle Whiskey.

There is also street entertainment, restaurants offering tasting menus and cookery demonstrations.

We arrived with friends into the centre of Dingle about 2pm and once himself had managed to park the car... not an easy task in Dingle on a busy day, we set off on our food trail.

Beginning with Beef stew at the Marina Inn,  Scallop with black pudding, delicious Macroons and on to Fish and Chips from Anchor Down. Relentlessly onward to Random Restaurant for the most amazing sticky toffee pudding before stopping off at Holden Handbags for wine tastings before settling ourselves into Benners hotel for a recover session over wine and Guinness.

While we wait for Peter to pick up the car we took refuge at McCarthy bar's catching up with friends.

A glorious day, rain held off and unsurprisingly by the end of the evening we just wanted to chill out in front of the fire and relax.

Sunday morning and we decided to head back into the mayhem and fun to try more food treats. This time it was a taco from the Dingle Cookery School consisting of pickled onion and shredded beef from cattle reared on salted grass. This is amazing, and the salted grass beef project is the brain child of students from Tralee college. They got funding for their project from the Credit Union and began rearing the cattle on grass salted by the sea and found that it produced a distinctive flavour. Now many of the local restaurants are using their beef.

Visiting Dingle would not be complete without popping into the local bookshop to see Mike and Camilla and find that there's a book launch of Trevis Gleason's Dingle Dinner cookbook. Perfect timing.

A return to Ballyferriter around the Slea Head drive is a treat, as was dinner with friends on Sunday evening.

And so our plans head off to Kerry County Council

Wednesday 13^th September is an important day in the life of Carrigeen. 

It is the day we lodge our renovation plans with Kerry County Council. Yes, that’s right, we have put ourselves at the mercy of a planner in West Kerry. We’ll know in about 3 months where her thoughts are about our plans.

As they say on TV programmes, it’s all been a bit of a journey. We began, before Christmas, thinking about a few odd jobs that needed to be done. A little bit of this, a little bit of that, but when we (eventually) got the quotes for those “small jobs” and picked ourselves up off the floor we thought, “ah sure we might as well go for the full job” and build ourselves a mini Knoll.

Back in February we met with a couple of architects, talked through our plans and decided to work with David Moriarty.  We met again at Easter to begin the process of the design and here we are five months later with a design we love and think is going to be fantastic.

What have we planned you might ask? 

For those of you who have been will know the best views  are from the upstairs, albeit mostly bending down under the eves. We've decided to switch the house around and move our living room upstairs together with the kitchen and our bedroom. Downstairs will be guest bedrooms, utility room, bathroom, the control room and storage. 

This is the floor plan with the ground floor on the left and upstairs on the right. The front entrance is at the top left corner of the house and you'll enter straight into a large hallway. You'll see two large bedrooms which will be yours if you visit (again) a study, bathroom and other rooms.

The right hand plan is upstairs and you'll see a large living room like we have now, a kitchen off that, our bedroom further on down and stop the clocks, a terrace. We are wondering if we'll get a chance to seat out on that terrace more than 10 times a year, without a fleece.😄

This is a virtual 3D model of the house which gives you a sense of what we are asking for. It will be interesting to see if this lights the fire in a good or bad with the planner in West Kerry.

Potentially an exciting time.

We'll keep you posted on developments and no doubt the ups and downs of the planning process.

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And so like all good things.....

We've finished up our six week holiday here on the Dingle peninsula in  West Kerry and what an absolute joy it has been.
Whilst we are both heading back to exciting projects it is hard not to feel oh.... if only.

Whilst it might not be the best time of the year to give a sense of what a permanent life here would be like - best weather, lots to do, many people around to meet with - we were able to make that decision. The winter months will be different and when it rains it is challenging to find enough to keep busy.

And we were even able to test the Irish health system when I damaged my knee. Needing an MRI scan I got that within a week.  The knee has a tear in the cartilage and the usual wear and tear. So lots of exercises and weight loss should put off the need for surgery. All in all the service was excellent albeit it that I either had to pay for it (200Euros for MRI) or it was all free because of my E111 card.

Himself is back catching the 8.02 from BJ into town with all the delays and joys of that whilst I am "working from home in Dublin". Before we know it we'll be back into the swing of London life and enjoying it.

Slan Abhaile as they say in West Kerry

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Our local museums

We are blessed with two museums within a mile of the house thanks to the OPW. That's the Office of Public Works  to those who don't know.

This week is Irish Heritage Week, celebrating the history and culture of Ireland and as such he OPW have made all museums free entry.

So being the non sunshine day that it was we decided to do a little tour of our local museums. First up was the brilliant and beautiful Blasket Centre. This building is IMHO a joy and settles into the landscape perfectly. With a nod to the islands it commentates and celebrates as it looks out to them.

Having done a few trips to the Great Blasket this summer it was a timely visit as we learnt so much more about the people, the landscape, their lives and challenges. One can only stand back in admiration at these people.

What we did discover is that the islanders, not having a bull on the island, had to bring the cows across to the mainland on the rowing boats to be inseminated!

And being the day that it was the OPW had laid on some traditional Irish music as well as an Irish dancer. The music flowed through the museum and was a beautiful accompaniment to exhibition.

As is the way in Ireland the girl behind the till selling the tickets popped out for a moment to join the musicians and sing a song. And a punter joined the Irish dancer for a few minutes on the floor. He is the one with ordinary shoes!

We then headed back to the museum in Ballyferriter village. We've passed this museum on many occasions and even popped into the bookshop but never thought of venturing into the exhibition itself. I think that this could be described as a bit of a gem of a place, absolutely fascinating and although we are of course biased we thought it had a lot to offer.

And to the races, The Dingle Races that is

The Dingle Races is quite a big feature on the local calendar, that has been running for many years. Best described as the biggest horse and pony races in Ireland, which adheres to very different rules then horse racing you might experience on tracks like Kempton or Ascot.

Ourselves and two friends headed off to the races with the fifth in the party heading to Gallarus for drawing and soaking up the landscape.

We had seen signs for park and ride service and a bus service from the centre of town so were debating whether to avail of one of these options to avoid traffic but as we are becoming "natives" we decided it drive up to the venue.
And as is the way in Dingle we were able to drive straight in the middle of the race course, park up and walk over to the parade ring, all in about 5 minutes.

Often the word unique is used to described events and this definitely was unique and different. It is a three day event, with a variety of races including a ladies only and a donkey derby. There was also an impressive number of young boys and girls as jockeys, most we estimated under 10. After all this is where Jack Kennedy began his career at 9 years of age and he is now winning races in both Ireland and England, most recently at the Cheltenham festival.

One of the best moment was hearing the commentator say "and it's Pablo Escobar on the inside, just ahead of Bubba Watson"

And we had a winner, sheila bet on one horse called Best Times are Ahead.
Chosen for it's beauty and from my wide experiences of viewing horses.

Or maybe not, maybe chosen on the name and that I was standing beside the bookies stand showing a nice price for this horse.


The number 7 raced home to provide a eighteen euro profit. All spent on beverages, mainly double whiskies.
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