15 homes - one a mansion - sell at last in Kilkenny

A mansion and 14 holiday homes on 47 acres attracted worldwide interest when they went for sale with a €1m price tag two years ago. Now Duninga House been bought – by a local – for around €1.5m

A GEORGIAN mansion, on 47 acres, with 14 holiday homes in the backyard, has sold, two years after attracting worldwide interest when offered for sale with a price tag of just €1 million.

Duninga House, near Goresbridge in Co Kilkenny, has been bought for a reputed €1.5 million by a local professional as a private residence. At the height of the Celtic Tiger boom the estate could have fetched €10 million.

The estate was sold by accountants KPMG, on the orders of ACC bank, when a project to convert the house into a luxury hotel went into receivership.

When joint agents Savills in Dublin and Dominic Daly in Cork first announced the sale, in August 2009, they were inundated with enquiries from prospective buyers in Ireland and overseas. One reader wanted to come in straight away with a cheque for €1 million.

But despite the intense interest and multiple viewings, the property didn’t sell at the time. Later, the guide price was raised to €1.25 million.

Duninga House was formerly the home of the late Paddy Mullins, who trained Dawn Run, the only horse ever to win both the Champion Hurdle (1984) and the Cheltenham Gold Cup (1986). The Mullins family sold the estate, which was acquired by Cork developer Oliver O’Dwyer in 2005.

He secured planning permission to transform the 997sq m (10,732sq ft), 14-bedroom mansion into a luxury hotel and to build a complex of holiday homes. The project raised eyebrows in Goresbridge, a village with a population of 400, not noted for its tourist attractions.

However work was suddenly abandoned in 2009 and the conversion was never completed. Beside the house are the ghostly remains of abandoned foundations and walls for a new “wing”, which was to provide 23 extra bedrooms.

But O’Dwyer had managed to complete the construction of 14 holiday homes in a courtyard behind the house. These were launched at prices between €412,000 and €545,000. Not a single one sold. It is believed that the new owner plans to renovate the house – at an estimated cost of €1 million – and reconvert it for use as a private residence.

It is also understood that he may demolish the 14 unsold holiday homes which lie empty and are currently liable for around €3,000 annual tax on “second homes” which is expected to increase in the 2012 Budget.

The new owner also acquires numerous stables and outbuildings; a derelict gate-lodge; and exclusive fishing rights and river frontage on a navigable stretch of the Barrow.

A few miles away, in the even more remote townland of Ullard, developer Liam Carroll’s Zoe Group had planned to build a 144-bedroom, three-storey hotel, a car-park for 252 vehicles and a leisure centre in some fields on a back-road between Borris and Graiguenamanagh on the Carlow-Kilkenny border. That project also failed to materialise.