When Kyron Bourke first spotted his future home near Belleek in rural Co Fermanagh, his solicitor advised him to steer clear. It was a derelict wreck that had lain empty and forlorn for a decade. He was told it came with no land, had poor access, and no space for a proper septic tank. He bought it on the spot.
Belleek, a tiny village famous for its production of fine Parian china, is an area of great natural beauty and an ideal spot for anglers. It was also once a secret little hub of traditional Irish folk music. So when Bourke, an artist and singer-songwriter, came to buy a home there, he was drawn to Cottage 51, a dwelling that locals once packed into to hear story-tellers and fiddle players and to dance, drink and sing.
By the time Bourke saw the uninhabitable ruin in 1993, its musical history was a mere echo. Still, it didn’t stop him. “I wanted to claim back a bit of Belleek,” he says.
Although Bourke was born and raised in Dublin, his mother was a native of the village and he has fond memories of happy summers spent there with his aunt Agnes and her husband Eric Arnold, a manager in Belleek Pottery. A modern-minded gentleman, Arnold shipped in a flat-pack prefab — then the epitome of modern convenience — from the UK in which his relatives could stay.
The prefab is long gone, but Bourke’s deep connection to Belleek remained. When he bought the cottage — named after the code that denoted its position on the local area map — he negotiated with the landowner nearby to purchase enough ground to make the house viable. He also persuaded the vendor to throw in the old stone outbuildings next to the cottage with the sale. Bourke then decided to let it lie fallow a little longer while he got on with other things. This included running businesses in Dublin and Belfast until 1999, when he met his partner, Belfast conceptual artist and designer Fleur Jackson, a graduate of Central St Martins in London. The couple spent the next few years painting at Jackson’s villa in Spain, returning at intervals to exhibit and sell their work.
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They returned full-time to Belfast in 2003 and began work on the cottage. The traditional low-roofed, three-room dwelling was much as it had been when first built; the only difference was that the original thatch roof had been replaced with galvanised steel sheeting.
The first thing on the to-do list was rescue the stone cow barn and milking parlour next to the cottage, as their roofs had long since disappeared, allowing damp to penetrate the walls and cause them to crumble.
They then had to bring electricity to the site, and here, a shock was in store. The cost of bringing in an overhead electricity cable would be £7,000, but given the route crossed between the cottage and Lough Scolban, relocating the pylon to preserve the lake view would cost an additional £3,000. Luckily, Bourke had some money set aside from a recent exhibition, and this was how he decided to spend it.
Retaining the original structure of the cottage, Bourke and Jackson then set about updating it to a more modern living standard, but without compromising its vernacular charm and integrity. The roof was replaced and slightly raised, with skylights added to bring more light into the interior, and an extension built to house a bathroom and an atmospheric dining room/library.
“Of course, Kyron hated the extension, which he felt was a soulless blank box,” says Jackson. “I had to work really hard to give it character, hence the carefully thought-out panelling and extensive views of the outside,” she says.
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The master bedroom has the same basic outline as the original cottage bedroom, although the very low ceiling has been replaced by a much higher one. The original ceiling level is still visible in the remaining joists, which are now resourcefully put to work as shelf space. Jackson installed a claw-foot bath in this room, a luxury touch inspired by a dwelling far removed from the cottage’s humble roots.
“Not long after we met, Kyron took me for a romantic weekend in the beautiful Castle Leslie in Co Monaghan, where there was a bath in our room, and I loved it,” she says. “The master bedroom in Cottage 51 was large enough to take it and there is nothing nicer in winter months than a hot bath and then straight to bed.”
The look and feel of the cottage, which is part traditional charm, part mini-country house opulence, is mainly the work of Jackson. “I’m completely passionate about interiors,” she says. “Although I’m a conceptual art graduate, I was already buying vintage fabrics and making cushions when I was still in college. I was making things like that since I was a child, and it came so naturally to me that it took a while for the penny to drop — this is my real passion.”
On leaving college, Jackson worked with Ruth Bothwell of Decowell Restoration, learning specialist painting conservation and restoration techniques. It gave her a grounding that stood her in good stead when she inevitably turned her hands to interior design and styling.
Jackson found the drawing room the biggest challenge. “I really work at a detailed level to get a room right, and it wasn’t happening for me in that room,” she admits.
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Starting with the basics, an ornate stove, the original dark wood beams and a French hand-carved fire surround (“which shouldn’t have worked in an Irish cottage, but did”), Jackson painted the room with deep red walls and cream ceiling. The resulting look was a disaster and she ended up locking herself in the room for two days, refusing to come out. “I thought, ‘I’ll fix it if it kills me’,” she says.
She did fix it. Now, the beams are a soft pale blue inspired by traditional Moroccan ceilings, with off-white walls and deep cobalt blue woodwork. “Rooms always reveal themselves to you in the end,” says Jackson. “This room is tiny, but so often filled with people and music; it’s an amazing little space.”
The cottage was completed by 2009, and the couple spent a couple of years gathering more funds to tackle the outbuildings. The former milking parlour, dubbed the Annex, was redesigned as a tiny rural hideaway for guests. Jackson also refers to it as Baby Belleek. “We based the concept on a gypsy caravan, the blue and white theme evolving from the main cottage’s drawing room colour scheme,” she says.
A dresser they spotted outside a charity shop as they were driving past one day forms the Annex’s tiny kitchen. Adding an en-suite to the space carved out a neat niche, just large enough for a double bed with storage beneath.
The next project was the barn, now the Garden Room, a calm stone room for reading and relaxing, with stunning views of the lake and countryside beyond.
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The cottage and annex, which sleep seven, are now rented to holidaymakers.
“Every time we came back to Belleek to see relatives and friends after Aunt Agnes was gone, I promised my Mum I would buy a house here someday, and that we would have a family base here where our family had so many ties,” says Bourke. “And now — finally, I’m back.”
You can book a stay at Cottage 51 through uniqueirishhomes.ie