Property: Race on for pristine point-to-point farm in East Cork
Located in east Cork, 10km north of the busy market town of Midleton, the fertile land here has traditionally been used for the dual purposes of feeding and keeping horses and cattle.
People here are as passionate about their equine heritage as they are about their bovine one, and a two-part farm with aspects of both elements will be going under the hammer on March 11, at the Park Hotel in Midleton.
This hotly-anticipated auction consists of a dairy farm, part of which is the location for the annual point-to-point meeting.
“The property is for sale in two lots,” says selling agent, Dan Fleming, of Blarney, of the executor sale on behalf of the late Donal Barry.
“One is down the road from the other — just adjacent to it, really. He (Donal Barry) was very well-known and he had some great horses and had three lovely stables on the land. He was always very involved in horses and the local club.”
Lot one consists of a 92-acre residential holding in the townland of Reisk. According to the selling agent, there is no wastage on this portion and the land is of excellent quality.
“There’s a roadway going right down the middle of the land,” says Daniel.
“The sheds are in very good condition… There’s no major investment to be made — they’re ready to go, with slatted units and everything.”
The land is all in pasture and the outbuildings include a slatted unit, previous milking parlour, silage layouts and cubicles, machinery and haysheds. The lot also enjoys ample road frontage.
“The old, two-storey house is stone-built. It’s in good condition. It was a working dairy-farm that was very well-kept and cared-for. I conducted a clearance sale of contents and machinery.
"I suppose that the sign of a good farmer is the condition of his machinery — his tractors and how well-kept they are — and that was evident on the day of the auction.
"Many people commented on it, how the late Mr Murphy had everything done to the last…
“This farm was like a kitchen garden, it was done so well: even in the layout of the milking parlour and the central sheds leading onto a central roadway, for example. It was all very well-conceived, laid out and maintained for maximum efficiency.
“It’s very compact and it would be ideal for a one-man outfit; for a young farmer that wanted to go milking cows, for example.”
The house, he says, only needs a little modernisation, and it is in very good condition. It’s a large, four-bedroom, traditional farmhouse — also well-maintained and with central heating.
The second lot, of 66 acres, in the neighbouring townland of Leadington, was used in conjunction with the dairy farm, and silage was normally taken off it to feed the herd during the winter. It is all in one field of pasture.
“There is some woodland in that portion,” says the agent, “perhaps up to 10 or 12 acres on it.”
Electricity and water supply are excellent in both lots and the properties are close to Watergrasshill (13km), Rathcormac (13km) and M8 motorway (13km).
“It has everything going for it,” says Daniel. “Young grass, road frontage… there’s very little that needs to be done to either of them and it’s in a genuinely good area.”
The price expectation is €10,000 to €12,000 per acre.
Given the quality of the land, and its convenient location in a much-sought-after area in agricultural circles, the auction is unlikely to be disappointing.
