Cheap Irish houses

The show featured on tonight's edition of Nationwide.

Some interesting behind the scenes information.

https://www.rte.ie/player/series/nationwide/SI0000001172?epguid=IH000412856

That Nationwide segments goes some way to explaining why there are these shortcomings for many viewers in relation to suitability, budget, and engineering assessment. I suppose it has been covered before in this thread too about the origins of the TV show.

Regardless of that, I think the show contributes to a growing appreciation of the actual aesthetics of traditional Irish houses. So many people have little to no regard for what is beautiful in Irish house, and while beauty is subjective, there is some degree of coherence regardless of culture such as we see in music.

The rural cottages and farmhouses she favours are simple in design, unimposing on the landscape, elegantly proportioned, and furnished similarly with solid wood finishings, traditional sideboards, and fireplaces. In contrast, modern houses are a kitsch mess of styles, usually imposing without redeeming characteristics. They are often parked on top of a hill or above a road with an enormous drive entrance, no footpath, and have little continuity from our pre-1960 buildings. Even the 1970s bungalows were much more sympathetic to their cottage predecessors in how they are sited and shaped. The more exposure people have to small details like wood finishings, window proportions such as vertical timber windows, pitched roofs with flush gables, etc. etc. the more influence they will play on design decisions for both new builds and retrofits.

For more about this, from someone who is not full of notions like me, I'd recommend this Teagasc talk from Edward Byrne who specialises in lime plaster for older vernacular buildings. At the end there, like with Maggie, he talks of his love of traditional buildings and of how they form such an important part of our culture.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCGir4hiSA4

Well he comes across as completely clueless on the show. I wish he would give an honest assessment of a house. He seems to ignore obvious issues with houses and makes it sound like problems could be fixed cheaply when they wont be fixed cheaply - its very misleading. Most of the houses need alot of work done to them to make them comfortable and by the time even basic work is done on them they are far from cheap houses.

Would be great if they could fit that in, now that they are three seasons in. Perhaps also might see a trend in that the ones who actually buy and renovate to a high standard are artists, engineers, and generally creatives (in the sense of actually making things, not being influencers!). That seemed to be the case with the old council cottage shown done on a small budget, but those council and land commission buildings were well built and are newer than many of the featured buildings on the show. Certainly on the GHR show 100-150k seems about the minimum, say, for bringing an 18th/19th C town building back into use.

Its the third season and nothing really has changed or improved, except for some white cartoon type graphics and a visit to a house that has been done up. No mention of the increased building costs which is surely a major consideration at the moment.

I always think the prospective buyers are really clueless and not the type that would take on such a project. I think some of them don't even get what it would be like to be living in the middle of nowhere and the sense of isolation that comes with that (for some people). The Owners of the houses she visits to 'compare what someone else has done' always seem so much more clued in, more along the lines of the people who appear on 'The Great house restoration' albeit on a much smaller scale.

These houses are not cheap, they are priced according to supply and demand and there is not a lot of demand for houses in mainly isolated locations in poor condition.

Maggie is spreading her wings.

On screen next March Cheap European Homes.

I enjoyed the first couple of seasons but this season is very poor, s, they are howing houses that are not what the brief was from the client

Just makes no sense why they don’t disclose the BER of the properties; that would be part of the sales ad for any property.

any houses she shows them need serious work

If I remember correctly the solution offered was to move the bathroom downstairs!!! Now we are in the year 2022 - having no bathroom upstairs isnt a good way to rectify the problem.

I do agree that the house had potential though but they would need to have the budget to extend to make the house work right for a family.

It's a sellers market at the moment . What is defined as ' cheap' is probably a generational thing - I wouldn't call any house ' cheap ' unless it was under 50K. There is an air of desperation running through this programme. Get a house at all cost even if it is a dump at the side of the road. I can't believe people part so easily with big sums of money which will take twenty years to pay off. As the Budda says 'all things come to those who wait '

As for Maggie I certainly don't begrudge her new car or the Wexford accent although she might pay for some elocution lessons ? 😄

I would have gone for the middle house myself.

The one with the second fixer upper at the back of the site.

I was a bit surprised at the value to be had in West Cork.

To your second part - No, you need to remove the ground around a few parts of the foundation to inspect it, maybe prop up walls/ceilings. Its a very specialist job.

that big tin rusty outhouse - Maggie was suggesting that as a place to keep the lawnmower!!

Why ? I really like Maggie on this

Bargains yes ,but what is the point of living in some sleepy town next to a road. ? If I had to live for a few months in Spain or Portugal I'd like a nice vista or view of the sea. Maggi tends to equate cheap with good and some of the houses are frankly ugly. I felt sorry for Dr. Eva's husband. Money was burning a hole in her pocket and she couldn't work with her designer. It came across as one big vanity project.

It started from her website / blog / instagram so I would say it's her intellectual property. More chance of her moving it to Virgin Media than RTE replacing her.

Mad the way Irish people are obsessed with having somewhere to eat and sleep alright. 😀

On a more serious note though, I think because we don't have a climate suitable for outdoor living we care more about the four walls we spend our time in.

From what I've seen of the programme all the people on it have already decided to live in the areas featured.

They have expressed an interest in buying an old property and renovating.

Some of them might not fully understand the various pitfalls but that's part of the programme.

I don't think we are uniquely obsessed with property although we have a strong tradition of home ownership.

The UK, USA and Australia have similar programmes.