Farm purchase of the year
Persistence and a lot of sustained effort were the grounds for this north Cork farmer’s success — measured by his provision, according to local sources, of farms for each of his four sons.
Denis Crowley has been shopping for a suitable farm for some time, (he had a good walk over the €3.25 million guided, Glencastle, Kilsheelin farm in Tipperary earlier this year), and has now pulled off the purchase of the year, buying the 278-acre Caherduggan Demesne in December for €4.7 million from the Kingston family partnership.
In the heel of the hunt, the farm, which was guided conservatively at €4m, or €14,500 per acre, and included a quota of 229,000 gallons, made well over the guide — a record-breaking €17,000 per acre, which shows the value of dairying at the moment.
It could be said the value is skewed because of the purchaser’s access to a cash fund, but then the opportunity to purchase a farm of this size and quality is very rare, and it was a case of cometh the man, cometh the hour.
Selling agent Christy Buckley says the money available for land at the moment is “unreal”.
“We all thought we weren’t doing too bad, there were five people with three to four million to spend on a dairy farm, but they couldn’t go beyond that,” he said. “These were farmers who had sold development land and held onto the money. CPO money wouldn’t have made such millions, this was old development land money, and some had lost their heads or lost on bank shares.”
This line of underbidders tells its own story — the money is starting to come out of the mattresses, now that milk has pre-eminence again.
Caherduggan Demesne has remained relatively unchanged over the centuries. It was part of a number of estates held by the O’Callaghan family of Duhallow in the 18th and 19th centuries and a branch moved to east Cork in the early 19th century, at about which time Caherduggan House was built.
This simple five-bay Georgian house was lived in by the O’Callaghans at least up until the 1911 census. The demesne then passed through a number of hands, including an owner who made good the roof of the old house but who never got around to restoring the handsome old building. The land, however, did not suffer the same neglect, and for more than 20 years it has been farmed by the Kingston family from Spur Hill, Cork, who created a modern, thriving dairy enterprise. While the old house was allowed to fall into ruin, the farm has three modern residences as well as a superb milking operation. Set in a natural bowl, the farm extends upwards from the centre, where the main buildings are located, and it is bisected by a proper roadway and a farm roadway, and is laid out to be an easily worked operation.
