Outside Chance

“We had dreamt of having a holiday home in Ireland, but this is where we now live permanently and, instead, we go back to Germany only for a few weeks each year,” says the 68-year-old.

“The people here are so friendly, the location is fabulous. There are loads of great walks you can do on Sheepshead, which is absolutely beautiful. It is a bit off the beaten track — on the Dingle Peninsula you will have busloads of tourists, but here you will only see the odd free spirit. There are no tour buses, it’s mainly walkers and cyclists.”

It was walking that led to Ronnie and Emilie to set up home in Durrus. Ronnie is from Armagh, in Northern Ireland, but had spent most of his adult life in Germany, where he met Emilie. He had planned to return home, but fell in love with west Cork.

“After my retirement, I was looking to do something different and I thought I might walk across America from east to west, but my wife vetoed the idea — she said it was too dangerous and it would take too long.

“So I opted to walk the length of Ireland from Mizen Head to Malin Head. To plan my route, I started booking B&Bs online and some of these have excellent websites, with loads of local information.

“I was looking at the website of a B&B in Durrus, when I accidentally clicked a link to Durrus property for sale. The first property that came up was this one that we are now living in.”

If ever a home exemplified the maxim that a garden is another room, it is Kilravock. The two-acre site was first laid out by the original owners, Malcolm and Phemie Rose, and it contains an abundance of choice and rare specimen plants, including collections of acers, sorbus and hostas.

The Roses opened Kilravock to the public and it was one of the founding gardens on the West Cork Garden Trail . It even appeared in television programmes in the UK, Ireland and across America. The garden remains open to the public under the Halligans’ care.

It is divided into distinct areas: there is a cool woodland section, a warm Mediterranean garden, a shady Asian garden and a southern hemisphere walk, containing plants from Australia, New Zealand, South America and South Africa. A stream gushes through the west end of the garden, where a Japanese-style bridge provides a walkway.

“I go out into the garden in the morning and I might spend eight or nine hours out there,” says Ronnie. “It’s something I am continuing to develop — I must have planted more than 200 plants here already.”

Inside the 1,100 sq ft house, the couple have made few structural changes — but where the dominant interior theme was pine, most of the surfaces, including the fitted kitchen in the living/dining area and the fitted wardrobes in the bedroom, have been painted white.

Not only does this give the interior a much more contemporary feel, there is a greater feeling of space and light.

The living area has five windows — three looking south across the garden and the bay and two looking out on to the back of the house where the garden continues.

“We have tried to maintain a cottage style,” says Ronnie. “We took down all the old wallpaper and replaced it and we also replaced the curtains and carpets, which were a bit dated.”

The couple used a washable brick–effect wallpaper in the dining room/ living area so that it can be painted over if they fancy a new look in the future.

“The most effective thing we did was paint the cement floor white, and there is a dark grey rug in front of the log-burning stove to provide some contrast,” says Ronnie.

There are splashes of colour in the living room provided by the pink plates on the dresser rack in the kitchen and from a painting that Ronnie did.

“My wife commissioned it, and she chose the colours. It is triptych, and it depicts a flower of my imagination. Colour is also provided by cut flowers from the garden — because of our location and the plants that we have here, we have flowers from the garden throughout the year.”

Most of the kitchen units have been renewed, but the island counter was a great original feature and one that proved to be ahead of its time. This is where Ronnie has put his music centre.

“We added a stainless-steel splashback at the gas stove — my wife is a great cook — and we changed the appearance of the kitchen wall tiles at the work counter using a great German product, FoLIESEN.” These are plastic films that can be placed on tiles to give them a new look.

The two-bedroom house also has a small study, where Ronnie continues to work for German publishers. “As well as being a school teacher, I was a translator — I’ve translated more than 200 sports books in my time,” he says. “Today, I mainly proofread English language textbooks for use in German schools.”

The master bedroom with its white fitted wardrobes and walk-in wardrobe has an en suite bathroom, as does the guest room. Here the look is a bold contrast to the rest of the house, as the walls and floors are black. Two of the guest bathroom walls are covered in a black vinyl wallpaper, but the sheen and textured pattern mean that the room is less dark than one would expect.

“I believe that many people in Ireland think wallpaper is out,” says Ronnie. “But if you take your time, you can find wonderful wallpapers. They give great extra textures to a room.”

But one room that is always changing its colours and its textures is the garden.

At the front door, or on the patio, which is paved with Liscannor stone, the couple enjoy alfresco dining or just sitting there taking in the glorious view.