What we know about Paul Mescal’s €600,000 West Cork cottage (right beside Saoirse Ronan’s)

Earlier last year, it was reported that Paul Mescal and his rumoured girlfriend Phoebe Bridgers had bought a house together in West Cork.

While it’s since been rumoured that their relationship – which began with a brief flirtationship on Twitter and flourished during lockdown – has come to an end, neither party has definitively said whether this is true or not. Bridgers seem to confirm their breakup in an interview with Vogue Australia which included the line, “She’s rooting for former fiancée Mr Paul Mescal in Aftersun at the upcoming Oscars, for sure”. The piece was subsequently updated to remove it. 

Not long after that, Mescal admitted that the temptation to speak out about his personal life is definitely there, but he doesn’t think “that’s a wise thing to do”. He also told Ed Gamble and James Acaster that he’s smoking again on the Off Menu podcast… something he only does when something bad happens, so I’ll let you draw your own conclusions there. 

Essentially, the whole situation is very cryptic and we don’t really know what’s going on one way or another. He did purchase an Irish abode though.

Located up a winding boreen, just a few kilometres outside Schull village, his new home is just a 20-minute drive from pal Saoirse Ronan’s place in Ballydehob. “The house is up a laneway so passing traffic will not be a problem,” a local source told Exra.ie. “It is modest and the previous owner did some work. But what Paul wanted most of all was privacy. He plans to do a bit of work on the house, but he won’t be doing anything major like tearing it apart or anything like that.”

According to their source, Mescal visited the property again just a few weeks ago and was spotted out socialising in nearby Ballydehob. Perhaps Saoirse was introducing him to the West Cork way of things? 

“A lot of celebs like the area because people don’t bother them and the locals let the celebs just get on with whatever they want to do,” the source continued. 

It’s believed that Mescal fell in love with the area last summer when he visited with Bridgers to attend the Fastnet Film Festival there in May. Supposedly putting the word out that they were interested in buying a place, the property Mescal ultimately settled on hadn’t even been listed for sale online. 

“The house was never listed ‘For Sale’ and the whole transaction was dealt with privately,” a local source in the know noted. “All of Paul’s family have been down to the area and his mother Dearbhla was in the house before flying to California for the Oscars. She enjoyed working in the garden and she loves the privacy. The contract was signed last November and Paul is said to have paid about €600,000 for the two-storey stone cottage,” they later added.

Who doesn’t love a cottage, in fairness?!