Cheap Irish Houses

I like to multi-task—such as watch TV and cross-stitch at the same time. The kind of cross-stitch I engage in is counted—not design stamped on cloth. I have a pattern that I transcribe in my mind and, using the symbols and the numbered DMC color thread, I cross-stitch on the fabric. Most people look at it and think it looks like algebra. Believe me: I flunked algebra, and it’s not.

Anyway, I was looking for something to watch/not watch while I worked on a section (fox running across a moonlit snowy field) and found Cheap Irish Houses. The title had me at cheap. It was at Prime video.

The show is about a highly exuberant realtor who shows clients old bungalows, cottages, farm houses in the Irish countryside or in villages. Yes, they are charming and have potential, and, on a historic level scratch our curiosity of how it might have been to live in one of these old buildings back in the day—say before electricity and indoor plumbing.

Each episode focused on one couple or prospective buyer and features several “finds.” The articulate realtor along with her sidekick a kind of “This Old House” contractor inspect the houses and takes the clients on a video tour. She prefaces the tours with adjectives like lovely, grand, a steal! Then introduces them to what looks like a hovel, walls of lathe, cracked foundations, roofs with holes, outbuildings barely standing. Sometimes the past owners simply look like they upped and left everything, the places appear abandoned. The contractor makes it seem like the changes needed are cosmetic—but I know from trying to simply add on a bathroom to my Tiny House that none of these renovations will be free and easy. In most of the cases there needs to be a new roof and a complete overhaul of the electrical system. These old houses give new meaning to “the damp.” There is mold growing on the walls, big stains where water has gotten in and leaked, rotting the plaster. I lived like this in Chicago and it was no fun!

At one point the realtor shows a couple a townhouse in a quaint village that ticks most of their boxes—just one tiny hiccup, no bathroom. She shows them a john outback.

Amazing! Most of the buyers are not thrown off. Is this British stiff-upper lip, Irish perseverance or what? Only one husband shakes his head, as on each turn of the tour horrors await. It feels surreal. The realtor and contractor, the wife are excited about the possibilities. I’m with the husband—each place represents a LOT of work.

They are cheap, but not that cheap. Most come with a bit of acreage and outbuildings—the main thing, they are uniquely situated, such as along the sea, in a beautiful valley, beneath craggy cliffs. Along windy country roads where wild horses roam. One couple both in medicine loved the whole idea but had no idea how they would make it into work. It wasn’t the miles but how to navigate on such twisty one lane roads to Galway.

Check it out https://www.amazon.com/Cheap-Irish-Homes/dp/B07B8RZXGQ. The show definitely gets your imagination going.