Writer Darragh McKeon was feeling tired of the chaos of life in New York City when he decided to move back to Ireland in 2019.
Having already published his first novel, All That Is Solid Melts into Air, in 2014, he was working on his second novel at the time and came to realise that one of the most expensive cities in the world was not the most conducive place to be a writer.
Originally from Tullamore, Co Offaly, McKeon knew only that he wanted to find a home in a peaceful setting where he could write, to be near the sea to learn how to swim, and to live in a community where there was a culture of traditional music. He managed to find a home that ticked all those boxes while he was volunteering at Moy Hill organic farm close by in Lahinch: a renovated three-bedroom cottage in Miltown Malbay, Co Clare.
It was at the cottage that McKeon finished his second novel, Remembrance Sunday, described in The Irish Times as “a moving read about the legacy of sectarian violence [in Northern Ireland]”; it won the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year Award in 2024.
Describing himself as “a wanderer at heart,” McKeon, now doing research for his third novel, is being drawn to France, and has placed his much-loved home on the market, seeking €325,000 through DNG O’Sullivan Hurley. He has described his home as a place of retreat after the go-go lifestyle of New York.
McKeon has developed a productive writing routine at Fahamore: he gets up at 6am, writes for four hours, takes some time to meditate and then gets in the car with his dog and drives 10 minutes to White Strand beach for a bracing swim; it’s a bay with lovely calm waters, he says. He then heads back to the cottage to have his lunch and gets another two hours of writing done in the afternoon.
His evenings are freed up to pursue his interest in traditional music. He picked up his first guitar when he moved to Clare and learned to play at a beginner’s trad sessions in a pub in Ennistymon, and often goes to music sessions at people’s houses and hosts many of them in the big livingroom at the cottage, or on the elevated deck he built in the garden to capture views of the surrounding countryside.
McKeon has also hosted movie nights in the livingroom, where about 20 people have come over to watch a film projected on to the wall.
Extending to 125sq m (1,346sq ft), the cottage sits on 1.77 acres of land with three original stone-built outbuildings. It is painted white with red doors, and was renovated by the previous owner, who was an engineer. The previous owner also had the house well insulated, says McKeon; it now has a D1 Ber.
McKeon converted what was a shed attached to the main house, into an office/ studio room, which is also where he stores and plays his instruments. There is also a greenhouse attached to the side of the cottage where he grows seedlings to repot in the garden.
The cottage is accessed through a panelled barn-style door into the hallway. To the front of the house is the spacious livingroom with a beautiful stone-cut hearth with a wood-burning stove at its centre, a high, vaulted ceiling with beams, and wooden floors. It also features wainscoting and deep cottage windows.
The kitchen/diningroom sits to the rear of the house with another hearth and stove, making the space cosy on winter mornings. It features a Kensington seven-ring gas hob and double oven, a Belfast sink and exposed shelving.
The cottage has three bedrooms, all with wainscoting, as well as a spacious bathroom with a shower and free-standing Victorian bath, the weight of which nearly damaged the bed of his van on the journey from Dublin back to Clare, McKeon says.
The main bedroom is likely to be a selling point as it’s a spacious room with an en suite shower room, arched French doors opening out to the garden and a wood-burning stove. There is also a platform level where McKeon has his writing desk. It’s particularly cosy to light the fire in there while he’s writing, he says.
As for the location of the cottage, it was once described as “very central” by a carpenter who was doing some work in the house, which struck McKeon as a funny description of such a secluded countryside location, “but, actually, I understood what he meant” he says, as the cottage is within easy distance of the nearby towns: Miltown Malbay is 10 minutes away, Ennistymon is 15 minutes away “for cafes and culture”, Lahinch is 15 minutes away “for surfing and golf”, while Ennis is about 25 minutes away.
