*Pictured: Marissa McCarthy.
MARISSA McCarthy radiates the kind of energetic clarity you only get from someone who knows exactly where they are supposed to be.
A Quin woman with strong ties to West Clare, experienced auctioneer Marissa has returned to the industry where she built her reputation, and is now launching her new business, LoveHome Properties.
“My tagline is Property Expertise with Heart,” McCarthy says. “Property is definitely where my heart lies. Even over the last 13 years while I was working in other sectors, I’d still meet people on the street who thought I was still working as an auctioneer.
“They’d say, ‘We loved dealing with you, you were always so nice and bubbly.’ It’s that personal touch I’m bringing back.”
For Marissa, LoveHome Properties is a full-circle return to the trade she first entered in 2003.
Since moving on from her previous auctioneering role she has earned a Master’s in Strategic Management, and worked with the IDA launching international corporate startups.
She has spent the last six months navigating the extensive red tape to secure her personal and business auctioneering licenses.
Now, with a brand-new website live and a cutting-edge LoveHome Property app ready to roll out to clients for live, transparent bidding tracking, she is out on the road doing what she loves most; meeting the people of Clare.
Entrepreneurship is practically a prerequisite in the McGrath-McCarthy household.
Marissa is part of an industrious Clare family, raised in Quin by her parents, Pat and Brid McGrath.
“We are all in business,” she explains. “My sister Emer is senior advisor for Bank of Ireland across Shannon, Tulla, Scariff, and Kilrush, helping new businesses secure their finance. My brother Padraig set up the P&M Golf Superstore in Ennis with Dad 22 years ago. And my other brother, Cathal, went out to Brisbane 16 years ago, where he set up his own company, Allstar Infrastructure, specialising in civil construction..”
That international connection to Australia provided a unique insight into the saying, ‘small world’.
When Pat and Brid went to visit Cathal in the Australian outback, they walked into a remote shop only to bump into Quin native Nicholas McCarthy, who runs Lúnasa Farm, a regenerative farm and butchery located in Quin.
Marissa notes, “Padraig and his wife Alison who owns My First Steps, have been amazing…They definitely motivated me and made me believe that going out on my own was a real option.”
The entrepreneurial drive stems directly from her father, Pat, a well-known local figure who spent 35 years working in Shannon Airport, starting in the airport bars in 1969 before moving into the Airport Police and Fire Service.
“Dad was always business-minded,” McCarthy notes.
McCarthy’s decision to focus initially on the West Clare market is a deeply sentimental choice backed by commercial logic.
While she went to secondary school at the Colaiste in Ennis, her family ties are anchored to the west.
Her father is from Kilkee, where she has many relatives including Eleanor Corry, the primary school principal in Kilkee, and her uncle Gerry McGrath, who runs an award-winning, design-led construction consultancy practice in West Clare.
“We grew up back in Kilkee,” McCarthy says. “All my summers were spent getting the bus back there to stay with my nan and grandad; it was just the best place in the world. I remember swimming near George’s Head and down at the Pollock Holes.”
Although McCarthy has been heavily involved in property management over the past 13 years, she acknowledges she is stepping back into a residential property market that looks very different from the pre-crash era she previously managed through. Today, she notes, the challenge isn’t finding buyers — in just three weeks of quiet marketing, she has amassed a database of 150 active buyers looking for homes.
The challenge is supply.
McCarthy has designed a bespoke “selling pack” to guide clients through the entire legal, financial, and logistical minefield from day one.
When she isn’t valuing homes or keeping up with her new Local Enterprise Office mentoring sessions — which have her preparing to launch the business onto TikTok next — McCarthy remains heavily woven into the fabric of Clare life.
She is a member of the Quin National School parents’ association, rides horses, plays golf at Dromoland Golf Club, and is a member of the Quin n Tonic local choir.
Looking ahead to her business venture in the community, McCarthy says simply. “I want to take the stress entirely off the seller and the purchaser — you can’t forget the purchaser.
I’m excited to be back helping buyers and sellers across County Clare.”
