Meitheal helps to breathe new life into derelict home

The Derelict Property Refurbishment Grant is proving to be a game changer for those seeking to buy their own home in rural Ireland. But the limitations set by the Government scheme, whereby recipients have just 13 months to complete the work in order to draw down the €70,000 allocation, is proving problematic for those who are trying to restore older properties around the country to become their forever homes.

Anne French and her husband José Diaz purchased a 19th-century farmhouse outside the Cork village of Ballinspittle in 2019. They were awarded the derelict structures grant in 2022 but, due to the traditional restoration methods they have adopted, it’s been a struggle to complete the work within deadline to draw down the money.

Anne said they have turned to the generosity of strangers to help them get closer to their goal in order to qualify for the €70,000 payment that is essential to the family realising their dream of living in their own home.

By relying on the old Irish tradition of meitheal – where a group of workers come together to provide support and assistance as needed – Anne and José welcomed 20 tradespeople and skilled workers to their farmhouse over four days last month to get as much work done as possible on the restoration project.

“I am an artist and José is a stone carver so we were looking for a property with outbuildings that we could renovate into a workshop and a studio,” she says.

“After my mother retired, she wanted to live closer to us so she moved across from Wexford. We decided to go in together to buy the farmhouse, and we’ve been able to convert the barn for her to live in. The property came with 20 acres on which we’ve planted 4,000 trees, so the ultimate goal is to have a small holding where we can be as self sufficient as possible.

“We’ve been living in a mobile home with our three children, the youngest is only 15 months old, for the past five years so we’re definitely ready to get into the house. But we’ve had a fair few setbacks along the way.”

Historic significance

Because the couple wanted to restore the farmhouse using traditional methods, they found it hard to get tradespeople with the necessary skills, particularly someone who was willing to use hot lime mortar on the stone work.

“Our house is well over 200 years old and when we were stripping the walls back, we removed panelling behind which we found writing on by the IRA from the 1920s. They had named the people who had stayed at the house when on the run during the War of Independence and the Civil War,” explains Anne.

“Cork Museum came and photographed the walls given their historic significance. Had the house been bulldozed, as so many of these houses are, this would all have been lost.

“We wanted to do the work from a conservation point of view so we are putting hot lime mortar back in to the walls which is more labour intensive and has been one of the reasons it’s been almost impossible to get people to do the work.

“We were let down by one guy last year and in desperation I started ringing people all over the country to try and find someone to help us. We found Tom Pollard, a conservation stone mason based in south Tipperary. He was brilliant in encouraging us that the work wasn’t rocket science and convinced us we could do it ourselves.

It was great fun and very positive but we also wanted to use the experience to highlight the timelines involved in these renovations

“Last May he came down to Ballinspittle to do a workshop that gave us the confidence to do the work ourselves. We both have full-time jobs, so trying to do it on our own was tricky as the clock was ticking on the grant deadline.”

Tom knew the couple were up against it so he issued a call on LinkedIn in late October seeking masons, plasterers and tradespeople in Cork or surrounding counties to lend their time and skills to the couple over a four-day meitheal.

“All it took was a couple of phone calls after the original post went up on social media and we ended up with two plasterers, a stonemason, a thatcher and various homeowners who are doing their own vacant or derelict home renovations,” says Tom.

“It was great fun and very positive but we also wanted to use the experience to highlight the timelines involved in these renovations. While the Vacant Property Refurbishment Grant, (VPRG) is probably the best scheme yet to revive rural Ireland, far more could be achieved with it if there were positive amendments, particularly to the deadlines in place as there is such a deficit of skilled and available workers to do these renovations.

“Each vernacular building in need of repair is a different case, the decay and damage involved in a derelict building takes many forms, in varying levels of advancement and if the grant could take this into consideration, we could preserve a lot more structures and help inspire people to take up this kind of work.”

Anne is hopeful that one final extension granted by Cork County Council will be enough for her family to succeed in bringing the farmhouse to a liveable standard.

“Cork County Council has been great, they’ve been very accommodating in giving us two extensions in recent months and we’re hopeful we’ll have enough work completed to allow us to move into the farmhouse in the spring,” she says.

Kindness of strangers

“It’s a very slow process, the old mortar has to be scraped out and the gaps blown out with a compressor before the new mortar can be applied ahead of the fresh plaster going on the walls. José and I are a tag team, it really is just the two of us and with the best will in the world we were never going to get the work done on our own. Friends and family have been great, but they don’t have the skills so, when Tom put the call out on social media for his contacts with traditional heritage skills to come down to us, we were blown away by the response.”

The group who travelled from the four corners of Ireland were accommodated in a nearby Airbnb and fed and watered over the four days by Anne and her family.

“People came from as far away as Sligo and Louth, Wicklow and Wexford and Tipperary, they all gave their time and skills are we are forever grateful,” she says.

“We didn’t know them; all we could offer them was food and a bed for the night but they came anyway and the generosity of spirit over those four days was something else. One man from Tipperary has a three-year-old son and is involved in his own restoration project of Knockelly Castle, and he came and gave his time and skills to help us out.

We have been very fortunate in that our local authority is administering the scheme on a case-by-case basis

“A lady from Wexford, Sara Leach, who is a thatcher said she was happy to come to learn how to repair walls and gable ends that she could use on her own projects. A young graduate architect also came to help, as she’s hoping to get into conservation work so it really did warm my heart having such kindness and enthusiasm from strangers.

“After four days work, we now have our kitchen and sitting room plastered with the back room almost ready for plastering, which will be a bedroom, bathroom and a utility room. We are getting there.”

Anne agrees with Tom about the need to tweak the VPRG to make it more accessible and realistic for people looking to revitalise older properties around the country.

“The grant is a huge help and without it we wouldn’t be able to do this. We have been very fortunate in that our local authority is administering the scheme on a case-by-case basis,” she reasons.

“It’s a brilliant initiative that is bringing these houses back into use but doesn’t make sense to have the same criteria for a townhouse in a city and a bungalow in the country, let alone a 19th-century farmhouse like ours – one size doesn’t fit all.”