The Great House Revival

26-year-old Kieran is determined to buck the trend of leaving rural Kerry to find work and a home by taking on the ambitious challenge of renovating his Grandmother's old cottage.

1800s Farm House & Sheds, St. Mullins, Co. Carlow: Carlow man Tommy McDonald and his Welsh partner Emily Lewis decide to transform the ruinous property into their first home.

Hugh Wallace visits returned Asset Manager Eoghan O'Riain who is restoring a former seaside guesthouse in his native Rathmullan, Co Donegal.

Hugh Wallace is in Rockhouse, Co. Cork where school teacher Grace Cotter and her landscape gardener husband John are restoring what they think is a modest Georgian farmhouse.

Hugh meets designers Robin and Eoin on their journey to convert a Victorian schoolhouse into a chic family home. However, after delays and setbacks, can they transform this functional space into the home of their dreams?

Paul buys back his former family home and takes on the mammoth task of restoring it himself. With dry rot, a leaking roof and rotten beams standing in his way, can he save his old childhood home, and his mother’s pride and joy, from ruin?

Architect duo Rob and Alfonso take on the task of restoring their historic terraced house into a stylish, contemporary home. Can they achieve their dream of creating a unique home and workspace with the perfect balance of old and new?

Hugh follows couple Mary-Claire and Sully as they transform a Georgian house into a modern home while paying homage to the building’s rich past.

Hugh meets historic re-enactors, Liz and Gordon, who have travelled from America to create their retirement home in an Irish castle. It’s roofless and in ruins but can they save this historic building before it falls to the ground?

Lindsay and Kevin have left their suburban home in search of country air and space. They’re throwing themselves into a loving restoration of a traditional thatch cottage and barn in the hopes of creating their forever home, filled with old country charm.

Paul and his wife Judith are restoring Anderson’s pub shop in the hopes of creating their new home while also reinvigorating the local village. But progress is painfully slow and they are forced to take on most of the manual labour on this straggling, tumbledown building themselves.

Kelly and Paddy plan to build a comfortable modern home within the walls of an 1830’s mill. It’s missing every one of its 43 windows and most of its roof and floors, but these thirty-somethings see beyond the ruination and set about converting it.

Carolyn and Michael McDonnell, together with Carolyn’s brother Henry, joined together to purchase this expansive property in Castletown Geoghegan. Built during the famine, the property was last in use as a hotel but it had deteriorated at a surprisingly fast rate over its three unoccupied years.

Borrisoleigh native Frances Doherty kept a close eye on the sale of her childhood doctor’s house over the years before purchasing it in 2017 for €67,000. Together with her husband, Tom, the couple’s dream is to create their forever home in Frances’s childhood village. With a coach house and numerous outbuildings, Frances plans to have the project finished in time for her imminent retirement.

Ronan and Charles are the proud owners of Kilglass House in Longford, an 18th century former rectory in dire need of rescuing. Born and reared in London, Ronan is fulfilling his immigrant parent’s dream of returning home to Ireland.

This week, Karen Whyte and her partner Donnacha Curley, purchased Grove House a few years ago with a plan to save it from dereliction. Empty for years, the building was damp, water-damaged, and largely unloved. A native of Westport, Karen is keen to restore the building back to the grand home it once was.

Belfast born Garry and Anne Wilson have lived and worked in the UK all of their adult lives. They have always wanted a base in Ireland and in 2016 they were in the market for a restoration project and came across Belvelly Tower House in Cobh Co Cork.

Goretti Foreau and her French husband, Eric, have decided that now that their older kids are in college, they want a lifestyle change and so they are moving lock, stock and barrel from Dublin city to the rolling hills of Rathrum, Co. Wicklow. They’ve bought an old farmhouse and agricultural outbuildings that need significant and extensive restoration work to become habitable.

Irene McDermott has a strong personal connection to the cottage she is restoring on the Inishowen Peninsula in Co.Donegal. Her great, great, grandmother lived here and it has been in her family since famine times.

Ronan Fitzpatrick and his fiancé Mary Rahill are restoring a local two-room schoolhouse built in the 1890s as their family home. It has extra significance for Ronan as he and his father before him went to school there as children.