The Old Coastguard Station Roberts Cove 2.37

Newly up for sale is this 1820s built stone dwelling, erected by the might of the British Empire after the Napoleonic Wars.

They realised just how vulnerable the Irish coastline was from seaboard attack from abroad, as well as a place wide open for the temptations and spoils of smuggling.

This was the 28th station to be built in the first stage of a whole necklace of stations to ring the Irish coastline, with 160 in all built in the space of a few short years, 18 of them alone in Cork.

Many, but certainly not all, had direct sea access for boat launching, and this example at Roberts Cove is as good as they come.

Just open the boathouse double doors, untie any boat within, give it a short shove, and presto, off down the steep stone slipway like a water chute or roller-coaster, and away with you, into the waves.

The British coastguard service ran this for over a century, scanning the horizon, rescuing craft in distress, and safeguarding revenue as much as possible from the ever-present threat of smugglers, with the stations transferring to the Irish State in 1923, changing name several times until finally being rebranded as the Irish Coast Guard in 2000. By then, Roberts Cove station had long been decommissioned and was in private ownership.