It is reasonable to assume that the pandemic experience is different for the rich and famous. Take the actor Matt Damon, who spent two months stranded in an idyllic coastal village in Ireland and reportedly thoroughly enjoyed himself.
Mr. Damon and his wife, Luciana Barroso, plus their three youngest children, travelled to Ireland in mid-March to film “The Last Duel” with director Ridley Scott.
When coronavirus closed the set, Mr. Damon and his family stayed on to sit out the pandemic, returning to the U.S. in late May. Mr. Damon, talking to a local radio station, described living in Dalkey as like a “fairytale.” Mr. Damon’s representative did not respond to a request for comment.
Mr. Damon is just one of many celebrities infatuated with this corner of Ireland, eight miles southeast of the center of Dublin, the Irish capital.
The film director Neil Jordan and the singer Enya also live there, and the singer Bono has a home in the adjacent village of Killiney. When President Obama and his family visited Ireland in 2013, they spent a day in Dalkey.
The home that Matt Damon and his family rented for $1,350 a night in Dalkey.
Photo: Clare Connolly Estate AgentDalkey’s prime property market fits into two distinct categories: rambling Victorian villas overlooking the sea, and modern luxury mansions. And they are, by Irish standards, incredibly expensive.
The kitchen of a contemporary five-bedroom, five-bath house set into the hillside above Dalkey. It is listed for $8.94 million and has views of Dublin Bay and the Wicklow Hills.
Photo: Sherry FitzGeraldThe latest annual wealth report, produced by property portal Daft.ie and published in December, found Dalkey has the nation’s highest concentration of people who own homes worth at least €1 million—a total of 276 from a total population of 8,052, according to Ireland’s 2011 census.
“There is an incredible amount of old wealth in Dalkey,” said Clare Connolly, managing director of Clare Connolly Estate Agent, who manages the house the Damon family rented.
Matt Damon and his wife, Luciana Barroso.
Photo: Getty Images“When I was scouting for additional properties for ‘Last Duel’ cast members, some property owners really had no interest or need to rent out their properties—at a huge rent, I might add.
“They bought these mansions or villas, they may use them for about six weeks of the year, or not,” said Ms. Connolly. The rest of the time, she says, the homes are empty.
“It is really another world, a small, cocooned hideaway, where a large percentage of the Irish population would love to live,” she said.
The kitchen of Mr. Damon’s rental property.
Photo: Clare Connolly Estate Agent
The home’s dining room.
Photo: Clare Connolly Estate AgentDalkey is the second most expensive location to buy in Ireland, with Mount Merrion, a suburb south of Dublin city center, in the top spot, according to the Daft.ie wealth report. Dalkey’s most expensive homes are those on the coast or with sea views. Rosie Mulvany, head of private clients at Sherry FitzGerald estate agents, estimates that a waterfront home in Dalkey would cost about $1,350 a square foot while a similar standard home inland would cost between $843 and $1,125 a square foot.
In addition to good walking and plenty of nearby beaches, Dalkey’s attractions include a main street full of independent shops, pubs and restaurants.
At Bullock Harbour, boats are available for hire for trips to Dalkey Island, just off the coast, which is home to seals and a herd of wild goats, thought to have been abandoned by 18th century sailors. There are two Norman-era castles in the town, originally built to protect cargo arriving at the harbor. One now houses a small museum while the other is a private house.
Gavan Ryan, a director at Savills, says that Dalkey benefits from the broad mix of people living there. As well as seafront mansions, there are small, traditional terraced houses and apartments popular with retirees, expatriates, and commuters.
The living room of a gothic-revival-style Victorian home on the border of Dalkey and neighboring Killiney. The home is listed for $9.56 million, is 5,543 square feet, five bedrooms and four bathrooms.
Photo: Sherry FitzGerald
The Victorian red brick house dates from the late 1870s and has a finely carved central staircase.
Photo: Sherry FitzGeraldNew homes are scarce in Dalkey. There are few building sites and residents tend to take a dim view of changes which could spoil the historic character of the village. In 2008, a branch of Starbucks closed after 13 months after local residents organized a boycott, according to reports in the Irish Times. Most developments tend to be modest.
“There are some houses which are not protected and are on quite large sites,” said Mr. Ryan. “You will get them knocked down and two or even three houses built on them, with smaller back yards.”
At the start of May, however, and after years of negotiation, local developer Twinlite won permission to build 101 apartments on a three-acre woodland site a half mile north of the town center. This, by Dalkey standards, will be a huge development as well a test of the strength of the local property market post-lockdown, said Mr. Ryan.
This Victorian home, listed for $5.9 million, has direct access to Dublin Bay’s rocky shoreline. The recently renovated three-story seafront house is 3,746 square feet and has five bedrooms and four bathrooms.
Photo: Sherry FitzGerald
Outside space includes a sun terrace and a backyard measuring around 1/3 of an acre.
Photo: Sherry FitzGeraldReal estate across Ireland has been a long story of booms and busts, and even affluent Dalkey has endured its share of bumps over the last ten years. Research by Savills found that the global recession was still a drag on the local economy right up until 2012.
A cautious recovery began in 2010, with sales prices rising 1%, to an average of just under $517,400. Then values began to surge. By 2017, average sales prices in Dalkey stood at just under $787,400. However, there has been a slight slowdown since then. In December 2019, the average sales price was $763,700.
Ronan Lyons, assistant professor of economics at Trinity College Dublin and an expert in Ireland’s housing market, said that prices in the village tend to accelerate faster than Dublin or the rest of Ireland during a boom, and fall harder during a bust. The same pattern occurs in prime central London.
The seafront Victorian’s living room.
Photo: Sherry FitzGerald›“When you think about the people who buy these properties they are much more likely to be cash buyers, and this makes it a less liquid and more volatile market,” said Mr. Lyons, who also authors the Daft.ie property reports. “The top end of the market always bears this kind of risk.”
Despite several years of sustained price growth in Dalkey, real-estate values are down 33% compared to 2007, when, Mr. Lyons said, an average home in the village sold for just over $1.23 million.
Mr. Lyons believes that a combination of room for price growth, a strong economy, plus predicted population growth will keep prices in Ireland, and in Dalkey, on an upward trajectory post-lockdown.
“Dalkey was popular 100 years ago,” he said. “At the top end of the market people’s preferences will not change, it will still be popular. Matt Damon being in Dalkey helps a little bit too. It is already known [in Ireland] but it raises its profile.”
A view of the Dalkey coastline.
Photo: SavillsCopyright ©2020 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
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