A country house that had been abandoned for eight decades has scooped the prestigious HHI-O’Flynn Group Heritage Prize. Malcolm and Bridget Sparrow, who lovingly restored the derelict Dromdiah House, collected a €5000 award this week at the Merrion Hotel in Dublin.

Historic Houses of Ireland said:

Malcolm and Bridget Sparrow’s extraordinary vision and massive commitment to heritage are clear in the staggering difference in the house …. but also the work they have done to complete a sublime regeneration of its walled garden

Dromdiah House was originally built in 1833 by Roger Green Davis on a hill overlooking Killeagh in County Cork. When Bridget and Malcolm Sparrow took it on eight years ago the house was in a sorry state. No one had lived at Dromdiah for more than 80 years and the roof had been removed in 1944, allowing in the elements. The elegant architectural symmetry was virtually lost in undergrowth but the Sparrows recognised a sleeping beauty. Renovating Dromdiah was a huge undertaking which required nerves of steel.

The Sparrows, who will finally move into Dromdiah this year, were very deserving winners of the HHI-O’Flynn Group Heritage Prize. The equally deserving runners-up were the owners of Edmondstown House in Co. Roscommon, a former Bishop’s Palace, which has been sensitively renovated by the Ewings family and, Hazel, Aoife and Kelly Keogh of Whitestown House in Co. Dublin, who are in the process of transforming this beautiful building into a culinary and cultural venue.