Galway city: Murrough House, its 20 acres and private beach near Galway city is for auction on November 21st with a guide of €5m. Michael Finlan reports
On clear summer evenings, the private beach that is part of Murrough House provides one of the best vantage points to watch the sun go down on Galway Bay.
The beach runs for a mile along the wooded lawns and meadows of the 20-acre Murrough demesne, and is the only privately-owned seafront in Galway. A pier where yachts and speedboats can be moored juts into the Atlantic looking across to Rabbit and Hare islands, and a short distance to the south-east lies the Galway Bay Sailing Club.
Murrough House, once part of the sprawling Merlin Park estate, is in the eastern area of Galway city but, hidden away amid trees, fields and encircled by the sea, it has the hushed isolation of a country retreat. Indeed, the fabled American newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst - the model for Citizen Kane in Orson Welles' celebrated movie - may have had Murrough House in mind as an Irish hideaway when he bought it in the early 1930s. However, Hearst never came to live in it and, in fact, when Galway Corporation was re-constituted around 1936, he relinquished it without charge. The new Mayor of Galway, Martin Reddington, travelled to the US to accept the gift from Hearst.
Originally, Murrough was part of the Merlin Park estate, seat of the Blakes, one of the ancient tribes of Galway. Within living memory, Ann Blake, whose grandfather had been the last Mayor of Galway before a change in the city governance system, lived at Murrough. For whatever reason, the city had been unable to pay the wages and expenses of the Mayor and, as recompense, it handed over the city sword and mace, temporarily, to his granddaughter Ann Blake.
At one stage, Murrough was the residence of a Galway bishop who made good use of the Galway to Dublin railway line that runs behind the house. Whenever he wanted to travel to Dublin, his lordship would stand on the line, forcing the steam train to stop, and on the return journey it would let him off again at the back gates of the house.
Latterly, Murrough was owned by the Whaitman family, who were the landlords of Merlin Park, part of which they bequeathed to the people of Galway as the site for a TB sanatorium, now a hospital. One of the Whaitmans was married to a sister of Lady Gregory.
Murrough House and its 20 acres, along with the private beach, have now been put up for sale and will go to public auction on November 21st in the Victoria Hotel, Galway. The suggested price is in the region of €5 million. As can be expected for a house that has gone through such fascinating vicissitudes down through its history, Murrough has a clinging sense of rare character. It is a stately residence, redolent of the past yet in touch with the modern world represented by Galway city, whose centre can be reached by car in five or 10 minutes. (Of course, you can always go by boat from the pier right to the Galway docks too!)
Sturdy three-foot thick walls enclose 14 fine rooms, including six bedrooms, every one of which has its own individually designed marble or cast-iron fireplace. The entrance hall, with folding windows and a tiled floor, opens onto the main hall which has a handsome staircase with corniced ornamentation. Both the drawing room and diningroom have a graceful period ambience with tall windows looking out onto the lawns, woods and sea. Two of the bedrooms are on the ground floor, and could easily be converted to other purposes, and there is also a spacious study with a bay window, a large traditional, superbly equipped kitchen, a pantry, scullery, a downstairs office and two toilets. Both the front stairway and the back staircase lead to the four bedrooms upstairs, each providing beautiful views of the grounds and surrounding countryside and each distinctively decorated with some unique features.
In the grounds, there are two large outbuildings, one with two storeys, and both suitable for conversion to different uses. The area is zoned for amenity, and both the house and lands are ideal for imaginative development, with the private seafront providing a special dimension.
