How this Temple Bar pad joined up a farming family

Asking price: €450,000

Agent: Kelly Bradshaw Dalton (01) 8040500

​Living in the heart of the nightlife crucible that is Dublin’s Temple Bar has proven to be a ball for Carole Fannon and her two older siblings.

The Roscommon family have long co-owned a period second-floor apartment looking straight down on the area’s titular pub in what is essentially the hub of the capital’s tourist haven and its temple of the bars.

“From the kitchen window there’s always something to see. There’s always something happening. The trick is not to stay staring too long or they’ll eventually look up and catch your eye,” says Fannon, an illustrator and screen animator who has been somewhat responsible for Dangermouse and more recently has worked on the US animated hit sitcom Grimsburg starring Jon Hamm.

The family moved to their second-floor apartment on the corner of Temple Lane over what is now a busy restaurant back in 2003. “My brother John had just started working in Dublin in tech and my older sister Mary was studying graphic design in Ballyfermot. I came up to Dublin to join her at Ballyfermot to do animation.

“My parents were getting anxious at the prospect of three of us renting separately and that this was ‘dead money’. So my dad started gently pushing us towards buying somewhere together. He put up the deposit and we started looking. We found our apartment in a small ad in the Irish Independent. I can remember when we walked into the living room and I just sat on the sofa and said, ‘I’m home!’”

For three people in their 20s it was the perfect place to be, right at the centre of everything. “I moved straight from a rural farm in Roscommon to the centre of Temple Bar. It was such a contrast. It was amazing! My mother was delighted that we were all living together in Dublin as a family. Some of us weren’t so keen at first.”

Many will wonder how anyone can live and indeed sleep in Temple Bar with all that noise going on into the wee hours? But their apartment comes with its own special noise numbing system.

“It actually has two sets of windows. So you have the original sash windows and then inside them you have another modern set overlaid. The only sound that gets through that is the beer keg deliveries in the mornings but that never bothered us.”

So initially John got one bedroom and the girls got the other. “Around that time he was doing a lot of classes, in pottery, in massage and sometimes he’d bring the whole class back for coffee. We’d laugh at that as they all trooped up the stairs because, of course, it was mostly all girls.”

Eventually John moved out and Mary was delighted at the chance to get her own room. “But two days after she moved into it our oldest brother Luke landed back from Australia with his girlfriend and they took that room. So Mary was back sharing with me.”

Carole started dating her now-husband Sean, from Sweden, after he followed her home from their college and used a stick to reach the doorbell to the apartment in the inner hall through a gap in the front door.

“He told me he had called in to borrow some animation paper.” Later Mary’s husband Cormac ended up living there too. “We were like something out of The Brady Bunch,” laughs Carole. Eventually all of the siblings established their own lives and moved out. Since then, the apartment has been rented, producing a good income for the family.

Carole adored her 10 years living here. “I just walked out my door to the bus stop nearby for college. My office is just up the road. If we saw people having a good time down below at the bar, we’d just go down and chat. Sometimes if we had no money, we’d fill a glass with beer in the apartment and just go down and mingle in with the crowd below. We met so many people over the years. We used to come across hen parties and then join in.

“The George’s Street to Camden Street stretch nearby was where we mostly socialised with great pubs like Hogans and Whelan’s and all the places to eat. The only downside of living here was having to stand in the cold or the rain with your friends while they tried to get a taxi home.”

Since buying the apartment, the family have refurbished it, installed a new kitchen, upgraded the bathroom and put down a new floor. Accommodation includes two double bedrooms, a study, a bathroom, a kitchen and a big, open-plan living room/dining room with a period chimney piece.

Mary’s husband Cormac is fond of his mid-century furniture and Carole’s husband Sean was able to tap into an invaluable source of it in Sweden. That’s how the interiors get their classic mid-century look. “It’s harder to get that furniture here, but it’s no problem getting it over there. The only problem was getting it back here.”

So has Temple Bar changed in the two decades since Carole and her siblings moved in? “Believe it or not, it’s much quieter than it used to be. Particularly after Covid-19. But there are some signs lately that it might be sparking up again.”

Now the siblings are grateful to their dad Tommy and their late mum Anna for pushing them to buy all those years ago. “I thought I’d live here forever,” says Carole. “It’s sort of sad because this apartment always linked us all together. It gave us a reason to be in touch and it was something we were all involved with. But we have all moved on in our lives and given present market prices we decided it would be as good a time as ever to sell.”

On the doorstep is Smock Alley Theatre, the New Theatre, the Button Factory, the Project Arts Centre, the Irish Film Institute, The Workman’s Club, Irish Photography Centre, the Ark Children’s Cultural Centre, the Arthouse Multimedia Centre and Temple Bar Gallery and Studios. And of course the Temple Bar Pub itself.

Kelly Bradshaw Dalton seeks €450,000.