Dance to a new tune in Meath
WHEN Meath teenager Gearóid Solan hit the headlines a couple of years ago, he was given the rather reductive nickname of ‘Ireland’s answer to Billy Elliot’.
At the age of 15, Solan had become the first Irish male dancer in 30 years to be accepted at the Royal Ballet school in London’s Covent Garden.
Solan hails from Waynestown, near Dunboyne, and his family home there, Tír na nÓg, is now on the market.
Built in the 1980s by a local architect who then lived in it, Tír na nÓg is a redbrick dormer bungalow clothed in red and yellow roses.
Although it’s on a quiet cul-de-sac in a rustic region of typically lush Meath farmland, the house is only about 15 minutes’ drive from the Blanchardstown junction of the M50.
It’s on 0.6 of an acre with a deck and patio, lawns, flowerbeds, a pond with a waterfall, and a vegetable and fruit garden.
As you might expect, there’s also a detached dance studio on the grounds built of matching red-brick and measuring some 300 sq ft.
The house itself is 2,302 sq ft over the two floors, with three bedrooms upstairs including the master bedroom which has a walk-in wardrobe and en-suite power shower. The family bathroom is also on the first floor.
There are two more bedrooms on the ground floor along with two reception rooms — one a family room and the other a dual-aspect living room with a stove in the fireplace.
The kitchen opens via an archway to a sunroom with double doors to the patio.
Former taoiseach John Bruton maintains home at a few fields’ remove. For aspiring artistes, Chester School of Dance is five kilometres away in Dunboyne.
Tír na nÓg is for sale for €595,000 with Sherry FitzGerald Brady O’Flaherty (01) 651 0000.