Traditional Tidings

This eccentric abode, brimming with personality, colour and a touch of memorabilia, certainly packs a punch at Christmas.

Christmas madness reigns every year in Michele Sweetman’s characterful home in Co. Carlow. ‘Along with Christmas we have loads of family birthdays running from December to early January so the twelve days of Christmas are certainly a cause for celebration in this household, there’s lots of wine and chocolate and singing, it’s great to be able to spend time with family,’ explains Michele, who twenty years ago, was hankering after a larger pad and an escape from the buzz of the city, when she happened upon this gorgeous Georgian pile in Co. Carlow. ‘We were living in Dublin at the time and to buy a larger place there would have been double the price it cost for this far larger house in the country. I went for a peek at a house I had spotted in the newspaper and knew the minute I walked through the door it felt like home,’ smiles Michele. Michele’s brother-in-law suggested she looked around Co. Carlow, an area he knew. Having looked at about five houses in the county, this house was perfect, it was just over an hour from Dublin, so it was ideally located, the landscape around was totally unspoilt. It had five bedrooms and plenty of space for Michele, a textile designer, to set up a print studio where she could work on commissions, which involve silk screen printing on paper and fabric..

Read more in the December issue…