The producers of the streaming hit, Bad Sisters, may be staying tightlipped about details of the second season due on screen later this autumn, but one detail we know for certain is that the Howth house where most of the first season was filmed is no more. The five-bedroom, two-bathroom, 2,400-square-foot period home known as Longacre was home to the series writer Sharon Horgan ’s character, Eva Garvey. In real life, the home was the neighbouring property to Gay Byrne’s Howth house and later that of husband-and-wife creators and producers of the global smash-hit Riverdance, John McColgan and Moya Doherty.
But as soon as the critically acclaimed first series of Bad Sisters wrapped and Apple TV ’s cameras moved out of the stunning house overlooking Dublin Bay, the bulldozers moved in and the entire building was razed to the ground. The property was sold by software millionaire Ronan Rooney, who also sold his Curam software company to IBM in 2011 for a reported €150m. He got a rather more modest €3.
2m for Longacre and its new owner has now transformed it into a glass and concrete mega house of 13,000 square feet, one of the largest houses in the country. Architect David Leahy , who designed luxury homes for ‘Queen of Pop’ Madonna and the late Cranberries frontwoman Dolores O’Riordan among others, drew up the plans for the part-subterranean home to include multiple courtyard gardens and terraces, a bar, gym, a cinema, sauna, a jacuzzi, a snooker room and a huge un.