As one of Ireland’s best-loved writers, the late Maeve Binchy is remembered each year at the Echoes Festival in Dalkey, Co Dublin. The most recent iteration of the festival in October celebrated the “total absence of malice” in Binchy’s work. Running since 2017 and organised by Dalkey Castle and Heritage Centre, the festival is hosted in the seaside village where the late writer lived until her death in 2012.
However the novelist, playwright and Irish Times columnist was originally from Glenageary, where her family lived at Beechgrove, a semidetached period home just off Glenageary Road Lower, which has just been launched to the market.
Binchy published 16 novels during her career – her first was Light a Penny Candle, which spent 53 weeks on the bestseller list in 1982 – alongside short-story collections, novellas, plays and non-fiction books. Having been translated into more than 40 languages, accolades for her wit and insight into rural Irish life earned her a 1999 British Book Award for lifetime achievement and a People of the Year award in 2000. In addition, Binchy is commemorated with the annual UCD Maeve Binchy Travel Award and the Maeve Binchy Garden at Dalkey Library.
“I know there is always a danger that you look back too sympathetically – rose-coloured spectacles and all that – but my childhood was a great joy,” Binchy told author John Quinn for an interview collection entitled A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Girl.
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Binchy’s parents, Maureen and William, purchased Beechgrove in 1937 and lived there until the family moved to Dalkey in 1951. Set well back from the road, the Victorian house shares a driveway with its neighbour, but the avenue divides early and there’s lots of privacy and space hidden behind the tall mature trees that surround the site.
Laid out over three levels, the house extends to a considerable 270sq m (2,906sq ft) and retains many original details, such as well-proportioned rooms with tall ceilings, original flooring and period fireplaces.
It has a particularly impressive drawingroom located off the front hallway, with a fine bay window. This is echoed upstairs in the principal bedroom, a spacious room with an impressive ceiling and open fireplace.
There are five double bedrooms in total, three on the first floor with a further two on the second level, while two reception rooms and a kitchen/breakfastroom occupy garden level.
Outside, the property enjoys a southwesterly aspect to the rear, and has a long side garden, offering lots of potential for green-fingered enthusiasts.
It is located within easy reach of number of bus routes and road networks in addition to the Dart, with Glenageary and Sandycove stations nearby, as well as good range of sought-after schools and educational institutions.
Its Ber is D2, which new owners may want to improve, and the kitchen would benefit from modernisation, but the bones of a lovely home in a sought-after location will likely attract potential buyers.
Beechgrove, which has been rented out for some time, has now been brought to market by Owen Reilly, seeking €1.2 million.
