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THE BUILDERS:In an edited extract from their new book, 'The Builders', based on a series in 'The Irish Times', Frank McDonaldand Kathy Sheridanfollow the story of a millionaire Ferrari-driving property developer

THERE WAS an end-of-empire feel about Donal Caulfield's party on a Monday night in April 2007 to launch Belmayne, the developer's 2,200-unit scheme on Malahide Road, in north Dublin. Rival developers turned out in numbers at Belmayne's futuristic marketing suite, where TV garden designer Diarmuid Gavin, flouncy interiors consultant Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen and a slew of scantily clad young women rubbed shoulders with property journalists and gossip columnists.