Glencastle withdrawn at auction
The auction of the 276-acre Glencastle House, Kilsheelan, was well-flagged, but bidders drew in their horns and the property never reached the guide of €3.25m.
A similar auction occurred the previous week when Annaville Farm, Co Offally. was withdrawn having failed to make its reserve of €2.3 million.
However, it’s now sale agreed at a sum in excess of €2 million, says agent Anne-Louise Mitchell of Victor Mitchell Auctioneers.
The agents opened the property sale to all comers, and the Cistercian farm was snapped up within a week.
Glencastle House meanwhile, went as far as €2.65m but that sum was shy of the value of the fishing rights, pitched at a top value of €400,000, says Dick Collins, of Collins O’Meara, joint agent with auctioneer John Shelley, of Shelley Purcell.
Negotiations are continuing with the top bidder, a farmer from north Cork who is believed to have made close to €40m from the sale of a 200-acre farm near Mallow, in 2004.
Glencastle House has lush farmland which bounds the Suir, and is located just outside Kilsheelan village, on the Waterford-Tipperary border.
It has one of the oldest farmhouses in the south, dating from the 1660s, and has a large yard with a good quality cubicle house. The property had been operated as a dairy farm up to the 1970s, when it changed to drystock and tillage. Some 30 acres are under hardwood forestry.
Bidding opened at €2.3m, and advanced in bids of €50,000, until the high point was reached in just 20 minutes, at which stage the property was withdrawn.
* Glencastle and Annaville were among three large holdings to hit the market this spring.
Meanwhile, Lisselan Farm, at Clonakilty, Co Cork, the home farm of the Lisselan Estate, owned by the Blackburn farmily who have strong interests in breeding and racing thoroughbreds, is for sale by private treaty through Niall Cahalane, of Cahalane Skuse.
The commercially-run enterprise, located minutes from Clonakilty town, has 210 acres in two blocks, and 158,000 gallons of milk quota. The guide price is in the region of €3.5m. The size and location of the farm have created strong interest, says Niall Cahalane. “It’s very busy here on viewings and the level of interest is very encouraging.”
