Naming the names ready to spend on Fitzwilliam

Some of Ireland's wealthiest business people are lining up to pitch for the grandest Georgian townhouse to come on the market in several years. Number 25 Upper Fitzwilliam Street, the home for over 80 years of the Murnagh an family, goes under the hammer next Tuesday when it could make a record price for a city house. It is now the done thing to have a house in one of Dublin's Georgian squares or terraces, if you can afford the heating bills. Values have shot up over the past four years and £1.5 million to £2 million is now the entry level for one of these city piles.

That sort of money won't be any trouble to most of the people who have been walking through the Murnaghan home. Edward Haughey, who already has a splendid residence around the corner on Fitzwilliam Square, has cast his eye over the house as a possible office. So too has businessman and host extraordinaire Ulick McEvaddy, who has recently done up Auburn House, his mansion in Malahide. Architect Brian O'Halloran has also been checking it over for one of his well-heeled clients, who include Michael Smurfit and Margaret Heffernan.

Tony Ryan, who saw his opportunity of picking up a stylish townhouse snatched away when the government bought Farmleigh for £23 million, has also been through the house. The massive renovation job needed would be no problem to him after his superb redevelopment of the Lyons Estate, in Co Kildare. However he may find the 4,000 sq ft a bit cramped.

Not surprisingly, a clatter of senior counsels anxious to off-load some of the millions they have made on the tribunals have been briefed on the accommodation, and one or two of them may well be at the McNally Handy auction. A number of leading lights in the music industry have also sent architects.

While the Mexican embassy have toyed with the idea of moving from Ailesbury Road to Fitzwilliam Street, the British Foreign Office is also likely to be interested since the house has kept its mews and parking to the rear, which is a security bonus.

The high level of interest in the property stems from the fact that it has been virtually untouched for almost a century. It is one of the few houses in the Georgian squares to have kept its garden and mews.

Inside, the four-storey over basement house has a museum-like quality that is underlined by the huge collection of paintings - many of them religious works - assembled by the late judge, James Murnaghan. Over 300 paintings and most of the house contents are to be sold by Mealys and Christies on October 14th. The paintings include works stolen by Dublin criminal Martin Cahill (The General) in 1988 and subsequently recovered.