Red carpet rolls out on Mizen's  Millionaires' Row as Fastnet Film Festival brings stars to town 

THERE are two Oscars associated with West Cork’s Schull: one is linked to a certain local homeowner, and 2023 Oscar nominee, the acclaimed  actor Paul Mescal.

The other Oscar is linked in a family way to this origins of this house, Ardeen, on the rather exclusive Colla Road.

The West Cork community here turns all Hollywood and movies and all that glitters and shines next week with the running of the Fastnet Festival.

On hand will be 'local' Paul Mescal, along with his co-star from TV’s mega miniseries Normal People, Daisy Edgar Jones, with  director Lenny Abramson, in the coastal village’s Palace Cinema for a moderated discussion Friday May 24 on the nature of collaboration: they'll be among a host of Irish celebs and a feast of film, with over 200 shorts and 18 full-length to be screened May 22 to 26.

Actor Paul Mescal, who was Oscar nominated for his role in Aftersun, bought a Schull home a few years back. Fellow thespian Saoirse Ronan who also has been a guest at the Fastnet Film Festival has a home too by the water in Ballydehob, so there’s likely to be quite the buzz and talk about Cork’s own Oscar winner Cillian Murphy about the place.

Might the Oscar man himself turn up down west?

You’d never know who’s going to turn up, as they say, and for those with the bobs, and a grá for the seaside, local estate agent Colm Cleary of James Lyons O’Keeffe auctioneers has a place that might be right up their street, the local Sunset Boulevard or the Mizen peninsula's millionaires’ mile, the Colla Road.

This month Mr Cleary listed Ardeen, a fine detached ‘leading man’ of a home in a prime spot on Colla Road, dating back to the early 1940s and very extensively invested in by its current owner about 25 years ago.

It was built by a local West Cork landowner of substantial means, a William Attridge for his mother and sisters and named Marymount at the time, when he took over the family home nearby called The Glebe.

The Attridge name continues to be linked to The Glebe, and where an Oscar Attridge lived up to about ten years ago, with that house  now in another generation of that family's hands.

Ardeen, formerly Marymount, is between The Glebe and The Grove, two of the finer original homes of this salubrious stretch of harbour-hugging road facing Schull’s safe moorings, and has been owned for decades by a West Cork man, Finbarr Kelleher from nearby Gloun, who's been based for years in Dublin.

Mr Kelleher took it in hand after it had been rented out for a period and a bit down at heel, and then significantly overhauled and upgraded Ardeen in 1999/2000, over a year’s work done by local builders and brothers Tim and Frank Collins, with works overseen by Daly Barry architects and engineers.

He and his family have used it for holidays and long visits, but he is now doing work back on the family farm at Goun, hence the decision to sell.

Agent Colm Cleary (who did the off-market Schull home deal with Paul Mescal a few years back) guides the 2,300+ sq ft four-bed home Ardeen at €895,000 and says it’s in top order, and very comfortable inside and outside, with a quality kitchen by Celtic Kitchens. App-controlled heating, CCTV security cameras, has Stira access to a floored attic and salvaged, pitch-pine flooring.

For those who live or work elsewhere as well as hankering for a slice of Schull action, the bonus is the grounds are deliberately low-to-minimum maintenance, with graveled beds, mature landscaping and extensive drive and patios, very private to the back where it runs up to a farm field behind.

Veteran auctioneer Jim O’Keefe, who is himself generations in the locale and steeped in Colla Road lore recalls “for the best part of 50 years there was no development of housing along what is now known as The Colla Road. Could that have been because it was then known as The Graveyard Road?”

“Then the hospital came and that changed the name to the Hospital Road - still not very enticing,” he continues, saying it all changed after William Attridge built Ardeen, surrounded in its early days by shrub and flower gardens, with walled-in fruit and vegetable gardens.

However, those gardens are gone now, with Ardeen at the Schull end of the Colla Road, within a few minutes’ walk of the village.

Beyond it's home to some extravagant millionaire mansions: one ultra-private demesne enclave, in particular, with a tunnel under the road linking to a ‘boathouse’ is in a league of its own, pure super-prime property for any celeb with an unlimited budget.

VERDICT: Schull has been home to the Republic’s only planetarium since 1989: who’d have thought other celestial bodies would be landing there from star-studded Hollywood and Irish studios galaxies for the local, Fastnet Film Festival?