Kildare auctioneer Paddy Jordan must have been rubbing his hands in anticipatory glee recently when he got the sale of a 13-acre field at Corbally, near Kilcullen.

From the start he must have known that it would be of interest to none other than Tony O'Reilly, owner of Castlemartin Stud on the opposite side of the road. Sure enough Tony's billionaire wife, Chryss, decided to send her stud manager to Tuesday's auction. However, the hardy Kildare types were not in the bit fazed by thr thought of all that money sloshing aruond in depp pockets and they chased him all the way, lobbying in most of the 45 bids before the land was knocked down to Chryss at a staggering £365,00 (€463,454)

That works out at over £28,000 (€35,552) an acre in an area where even the best agricultural land seldom fetches more than £8,000 (€10,158) an acre.