French singer Pierre Perret's €2.75m Connemara home is a symphony in blues

THERE might be 40 shades of green  in Ireland, but this house by a beach in Connemara’s beautiful Ballyconneely appears to have beaten it in numerical terms for the ranges of blue that it features, inside, outside, upstairs, downstairs, and even in its name.

The long-time owner of Blue Salmon, the veteran French singer Pierre Perret (pictured, below), may have written up to 500 songs, but his beloved Connemara holiday home now for sale is going for anything but a song: it’s priced at €2.75 million.

Ooh, La La.

Monsieur Perret has been singing since the 1950s, sold a million copies of his 1960s slight blue or risque song Le Zizi (it’s about a penis) and bought a seaside home in the West of Ireland in the 1980s, later demolishing and rebuilding it around 2005 to what’s seen here: it’s a 4,900 sq ft five-bed home with 180 degree Mannin Bay views, a private strip of beach, and an interior that’s a symphony in blues.

The same entertainer has acted in movies and for TV, and has authored several books including memoirs, those on travel, cookery (this home has a whopping gourmand’s Fourneaux range cooker, in deep blue) and angling.

In Connemara, one of his passions has been salmon fishing, hence the name, the displayed rods, reels and landed and mounted salmon trophies: French media who have visited him ‘in the wild Irish west’ have reported he was Angler of the Year in the west in 1985 for a 12.5lb salmon.

Coming up on his 91st birthday, and still promising another release in 2026 almost on top of the 40 he has already recorded, he’s put the Irish home he’s shared for over 40 years with his partner Rebecca up for sale: sort of a ‘catch and release’, with a €2.75m price tag via Galway estate agent Luke Spencer.

It’s one of just three or four here in a cluster near Ballyconneely, backing on sandy beaches and lagoon-like blue lapping water, between property hotspots Roundstone and Clifden, by the white Coral Beach.

At €2.75m, it’s up at the top end of the price scale, even for a location like this, where sales in excess of €1m are rare enough; However, the Price Register show the sale of Whale Harbour Cottage, Ervallagh near Roundstone for €2.43m in 2022.

Blue Salmon doesn’t hold back on either the marine/salmon or colour blue motifs, both are in abundance, everywhere, in furniture and fittings, art, specialist collections, tilig and floor finishes and mosaics, even in the colour of the open plan first floor’s French billiard table (ie no pockets) which has a blue baize not green.

Mr Spencer says the five bed house (two up, three down, linked by a galvanised spiral stairs) was “designed to make the most of its truly special location and orientation,” with open plan areas, feature porthole window, serious kitchen, entertainment area and glass balustraded outdoor terrace.

There’s 1.75 acres, from the road to the beach and shoreline (everything above the highwater mark is private), predominantly left in a natural state with stone wall boundaries and there’s an integrated garage with the main dormer style and substantial house.

VERDICT: In French media interviews Mons Perret enthused “Ireland, my little corner of paradise,” and as an escape added “Here, no one knows me, I’m just a French fisherman, and everyone gives me peace!”