Developer Johnny Ronan emerges as owner of Dublin city’s only private park

When agent Savills offered No 65 Fitzwilliam Square to the market on the behalf of joint receivers, Declan McDonald & Ken Tyrrell of PwC, in February, the promise of “exclusive access to the private Fitzwilliam Square park” was just one, and not insignificant, selling point of the prestigious Georgian pile.

Roll forward to today, however, and the very same park and the matter of access to it could prove to be something of a stumbling block towards the progress of the property’s sale. For while prospective purchasers of No 65 would secure ownership of the four-storey over-basement building itself for the €2.85 million being quoted by the selling agent, there’s no absolute guarantee this will give them access along with Fitzwilliam Square’s other owners and occupiers to the prized patch at its centre.

But what could possibly prevent the newly minted owner of No 65 from enjoying the full benefits of the park? Well certainly not the Fitzwilliam Square Association, the organisation whose members have maintained Dublin’s only private park in the city since the Georgian era. According to its website, the association invites applications for keys to the park from both the square’s owners and inhabitants, and from up to 100 “off-square” commercial and residential members annually.

[  Johnny Ronan: Stuck in a new kind of bear trap ]

A problem for the purchaser could well arise, however, in the form of No 65′s current owner, Johnny Ronan, whom it is understood is none too happy to see his property being offloaded by receivers on behalf of one of Ronan Group Real Estate’s lenders, Fortress Investment Group. Although Ronan has no control over that process, he does however own the 150-year leasehold interest over the park, having acquired it from the Pembroke Estate a number of years ago.

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So could he try to stand in the way of a new owner looking to take a walk in his park? Only time will tell, and Ronan would appear to have plenty of it.