Being shown around a house by a poet is quite a different experience to viewing it with an estate agent. While the latter tend to talk about square footage and numbers of rooms, Micheal O’Siadhail points out, in his Booterstown home, how the light changes throughout the day, how the garden, lush and green, is like being in the country and how pleased he is that the only sign that the house was given a modern makeover is a single, tall slim window to the front.
O’Siadhail is one of our most prolific poets. His work is translated into many languages, he is a member of Aosdána and he works in an attic conversion in this detached 1930s house at 5 Trimleston Avenue in Booterstown, Co Dublin.
Nine of his 13 collections, including The Chosen Garden (based on the garden of this house) were written here.
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He is now downsizing from the 140sq m (1,505sq ft)house, and somewhat reluctantly leaving behind the home. O'Siadhail and his late wife Bríd were very involved in the artistic life of the city and played host, over the years, to John McGahern, Hugh Leonard, Bernard Farrell, Mary O'Donnell, Cecil King, Louis le Brocquy and Michael Kane among many others.
O’Siadhail points to a neat upright Bechstein in the front room – musicians who visited included James Wilson, Seóirse Bodley and the American composer and arranger Rob Mathes, all of whom set some of his poetry to music.
The couple bought the four-bedroom semi-detached house 30 years ago when it was in two flats – he remembers the “push-button A” black payphone in the hall.
In 2006 they commissioned Lawrence and Long Architects to rework the ground floor.
They did a very smart, imaginative job – extending without compromising on light; indeed bringing more in and giving the house a modern feel while keeping its character.
Part of the garage was converted into a large utility room – that’s the slim window seen from the front and it also has a roof light.
The two interconnecting reception rooms were left as they were and now flow into the kitchen in the extension. The kitchen, with a wall of units on one side, opens out into the back garden via glazed accordion doors that run the width of the room.
The new extension also made space for an additional room at the back of the house which could be used as a playroom.
There is a large, wheelchair accessible wet-room, which is smartly finished with mosaic tiling, created out of part of the garage.
A tiny internal garden in the new rear hall, is an attractive and unexpected feature with a practical function – it serves as a light-well bringing natural light into the extended area.
Upstairs the bedrooms are three doubles (including the one in the attic), a small single and the family bathroom.
The long back garden, filled with mature trees and shrubs, leads down to a small stream which is the boundary for this side of several of these Trimleston houses. It has a BER of E1.
The house is for sale through Beirne & Wise for €850,000.
