James Kavanagh and William Murray had been renting in Phibsboro, Dublin 7, for years when a TV show they co-presented, The Great Inspo Home Adventure, on Virgin Media, took them to every corner of the country. This exploration of the four corners of Ireland prompted them to broaden their home-hunting horizons.
“We had a very rigid list,” Kavanagh recalls. “The show taught us that there is so much beauty in Ireland and that what we needed was a house we could live in for a while before starting a reno project.”
The couple have been together for 11 years. During the Covid lockdowns, they spent long periods in Murray’s native Currabinny, south of Ringaskiddy in coastal Co Cork. “We both felt a bit stagnated,” Kavanagh recalls. “We were renting. We wanted to decorate.”
James grew up in a council house and wanted to make his mark on his first home. “I wanted a big house, the fantasy of a big house.”
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But the reality of the property market meant that they had to dowse their dreams in a dose of truth.
Finding themselves priced out of Dublin and Cork, they realised their money would stretch further outside of these metropolises, and so they started looking for a three-bedroom home with a garden in a myriad of other locations.
Then, the place in Kilkenny came up, says Murray. Up a boreen and at the top of a hill, the long cottage had a two-storey section at its centre, was set in a cross formation, and boasted views of the Blackstairs mountains. It belonged to poet Kerry Hardie, whose work is on the Leaving Cert curriculum, and her watercolourist husband Sean, who co-created Not the Nine O’Clock News, and bore all the hallmarks of a home owned by creatives. It had charm and charisma in spades.
Murray had initial anxiety about being so far from the sea, but when he checked the distances, the house is about a 45-minute drive to the beaches of Hook Head or to Curracloe and 50 minutes to Tramore.
“We just lucked out,” they chorus. And they did. The place had great bones. It was light-filled and decorated with books and artworks. With large windows in every room, the place was washed in light.
Surrounded by mature trees, lawns and a polytunnel, it was the synergy between inside and out that wooed them. Populated with bird life, including woodpeckers and goldfinches, “the garden is what sold it”, says Kavanagh.
The vendors took the time to walk them through the one acre of grounds and even left them a booklet on how to maintain them. There were fruit trees, including apple and pear, as well as raspberries, and a polytunnel so that they could grow their own. They’ve cleared out the beds and have planted tomatoes and courgettes, as well as potatoes and carrots that they are beginning to serve at long lunches with friends.
It cost €405,000 to buy, according to the register. The couple made a conscious decision to live in it for a while before doing any refurbishment or insulation upgrades. They plan to go back to the bank and borrow the additional money in the next 12 to 18 months.
They’re enjoying the space as it is, having decorated it with their books and objects they have been collecting for years. Out and proud fans of clutter, they admit that many of the purchases have lived in the basement of Kavanagh’s brother’s home. They also shoved pieces into the corners of their rental.
After living in a landlord’s house for so long, they say they are chomping at the bit to get started and continue to roam salvage yards and antique shops, picking up pieces.
“My instincts were to give everything a lick of paint and fill up any holes in walls,” says Murray, but Kavanagh wouldn’t let him do anything. “His approach was that when we do the works, we do everything at once.”
So, for now, they’re relishing the serene atmosphere they’ve inherited as they add their own touches to the place.
“We want to lean into the fact that we’re hoarders and are into the cottagecore look, big squishy sofas, colour-drenched rooms, and lovely wallpapers, including stripes in the sittingroom,” says Kavanagh. They’re also hankering after wide plank reclaimed timber flooring that they’ve spotted in Kilkenny Salvage, and have asked their friend Deirdre Fitzgerald of Studio Tandem to create mood boards to visualise it all.
They’ve also made some practical changes, recently installing solar panels with battery storage but don’t yet know what sort of electricity savings these will give. “For now, the house heats up, but the warmth is gone in a second, so we just huddle in the sittingroom by the fire,” says Kavanagh. A new boiler and an air-to-water heat pump are also on the wish list.
As they number crunch in advance of renegotiating their mortgage to try to fund the works, Kavanagh has become obsessed with framing all manner of mementoes, so pieces are hanging everywhere, including a catalogue of an art exhibition featuring the work of Murray’s mother, Breda Lynch, who died from Covid at a time when, as one of 12 siblings, not all of her family could attend the funeral. It is now displayed proudly and feels like a sign of approval, a blessing, says Murray.
They estimate the new works will cost in the region of €200,000, but hope to be eligible for some retrofitting grants to reduce that number. When they’re not at their calculators, they’re documenting their every move on their online series, The Simpler Life? on Instagram.
