The same family has owned this three-storey house at 6 Palmerston Park since 1958. Yann Fouéré and Marie-Magdeleine Mauger came to the Victorian house following a circuitous Celtic route, from Brittany in France to Wales, Connemara and then Dublin.
Fouéré, a key figure in the Breton nationalist movement and later a co-founder of the Celtic League, was forced to leave France in 1945, to escape a sentence of 20 years of hard labour for his political activities. After establishing a lobster business in Connemara, the family of two sons and three daughters moved to this house in Dublin, in the same year the French government exonerated Fouéré.
He wrote a number of books, including Le Maison en Connemara in which there is a photograph of 6 Palmerston Park, now for sale at €1.65 million through Sherry FitzGerald. The semi-detached house still looks much the same and it does need updating inside, but the opportunity to acquire an intact, handsome Dublin 6 redbrick overlooking a park puts the refurb question in the ha'penny place.
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While some may want to do substantial reconfiguring, those with a more relaxed approach could start by just repainting it. The original features in the 271sq m (2,915sq ft) 1880s house are intact and include fireplaces, ornate plasterwork and wooden floorboards. The proportions are expansive, with high ceilings, wide hall and stairs, and deep windows (replacing the PVC with wood would be a kind gesture to the integrity of the house). The original Shanks and Co rolltop bath and buoyant basin are must-keeps.
Wide stone steps lead to the front door beyond which there are two connected reception rooms and a small kitchen. On the floor above are four bedrooms and the bathroom. One of the bedrooms has paintings by actress Olwen Fouéré, one of Yann and Marie-Magdeleine’s daughters. In a room at the top of the house is a shower-room. The apartment in the basement has two bedrooms.
There is a lawn to the front, and a garden to the back with pretty trees. Many neighbouring houses have built mews houses at the end of their gardens and the same area has been marked off the rear of this garden and will not be in the sale.
Yann Fouéré died in 2011 at the age of 101. He left many legacies, this house included.
