The Monkstown Dublin House Experiment

The Monkstown, Dublin House Experience I n Abu Dhabi, the annual vacation time was 4 weeks. I understand that this derived from the earlier colonial times when Brits traveling to India went by steamer (POSH…Port Out, Starboard Home to stay out of the sun!). The passage took so long that the vacation time had to take account of the travel time. Anyway, by the mid-70s it was apparent that as we would come to Dublin every year we needed a place of our own.

Starting around 1974/75 we started to search in earnest.

Ultimately we settled on a reputable builder who was developing about 30 houses in a horseshoe shape around a grassy central reservation. We picked the plot and the house style we liked and then set about getting a loan from a bank. My salary at that time was about GBP 1500 a year. We had very little expenses in Abu Dhabi and also received some additional money for serving in a hardship location. Eventually I did succeed in negotiating a 30-year mortgage from the bank in Kimmage. Unfortunately I have no idea how much the house cost! However, a Google search notes that the average new house price in Dublin at that time was GBP 13,250.

The next step was to alter the given design to suit us. This involved removing the inner hall at the front door to make the living room bigger. The result, however, was that the front door opened straight into the living room! There was no privacy for anyone calling. Then I decided to engage an interior designer.

Everything was happening in a hurry because I had fewer than 4 weeks to get everything done. I found an outfit located beside the Shelbourne Hotel on St. Stephen’s Green. I should have known that someone based there would be outrageously expensive, and this was certainly the case. The principal designer was an aged, plump Anglo-Irish gent who walked with a cane. His assistant was a mousy young woman of indeterminate age. This duo had very outré ideas for design, and of course were horribly expensive. Perhaps the most contentious decorative feature amongst many was covering all the walls of the master bedroom in copper shaded mirrors. My mother insisted the room looked like the inside of a bordello, though I was reluctant to ask her how she knew that! The other item I remember was an elaborate bedspread, handmade in layers and covered in lace. I was shocked at the cost. Hopefully, Liz still has it.

I suppose the house was finished by 1976 and we may well have vacationed there that year. Pierce was born in May of the following year, so he would have been there as a baby. The only time I can remember my father being in the house was when Pierce was a baby, although he may have come to the house the following year when Aisling was a baby. All in all, it was just as well we did have the house once we had kids. I doubt that either Liz’s mother or mine would have been too pleased to have crying babes staying with them for 4 weeks!

During these years, while we were in Abu Dhabi, the house was left vacant. Then came the coldest Dublin winter on record. The central heating oil froze, with the result that the water pipes in the house froze, and when the thaw came the pipes burst, the ceilings fell down and water continued to flood the house. By the time it was recognized there was just a giant slurry of water mixed with drywall on the ground floor and there was no upper floor. The damned oil companies had saved pennies by not supplying the correct grade of heating oil to Irish homes.

Once the house was repaired, we decided to rent it out, so that at least it would be occupied. By and large the tenants were hard luck stories who only reluctantly paid the rent. Finally we had some guy, who appeared to be prosperous but who never paid the rent at all. It’s very difficult to get renters out of furnished accommodation, and I believe it took the best part of a year to persuade this guy to move.

For the next 3 years we lived in rented accommodation in the US and in Holland paid for by Mobil, and so it was probably not until 1986 that we finally sold the Monkstown house in order to afford to buy a house in Westport, CT. We may have been helped in getting the US down payment scraped together by the significant inflation that affected Irish house prices in the ‘80s. The average house price in Dublin in 1986 was £ 52,000.

Since that initial, painful experience of house ownership, we’ve bought a number of properties, which, on balance, probably kept us even with inflation. All the same, it was so disheartening after pouring so much thought (and money) into our first house, to see it wrecked. One never has a second chance to enjoy a first experience, or so (to paraphrase) it is said. That may well be why I have no photos of the house to share.